


Moon's Shadow

by Certeis



Category: Chrono Trigger, Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M, Femdom, Magic, Mind Control, Other, Transgender, Watersports, utopian setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-01-31 10:45:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18589675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Certeis/pseuds/Certeis
Summary: Beryl was born with the Crest of the Moon upon his chest, a Crest that carries with it a connection to an unfathomable power that he doesn't understand.  He flees into the heart of the Empire to avoid persecution, but only finds himself a pawn in an elaborate plot, rather than a pariah...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is based very strongly upon the "Magic Kingdom of Zeal" from Chrono Trigger but isn't set explicitly in that universe. Sorry if anybody feels mislead by the tags ^.^;

Beryl fidgeted nervously with the piece of chalk worn down to a nub held between his fingertips.  His eyes raced across the smooth stone wall of the basement where He’d sketched down an elaborate mural of diagrams, formulas and various notes to figure out the Glyph he was trying to create.  It all looked correct to him. The last time he’d found and corrected an error in his work had been yesterday morning, and now the growing fear of having Enforcement find him was starting to rival his fear of going through with the ritual as he’d currently formulated it.

 

People had long joked about how he  _ must _ bear the Moon’s Crest, that he was far too feminine, or too delicate, or too pretty for a boy.  But two days ago, one of his friends had seen it etched into his skin in the middle of his chest.  His friend’s eyes had gone wide with disbelief and horror, and she’d run off. Beryl hadn’t waited around or pleaded with his friend, hadn’t held out hope that maybe the girl wouldn’t have told someone about it.  He was positive that Enforcement knew about it now, and that they were looking for him. Kaaz wasn’t a particularly large island, there were only so many places to search. They’d stumble upon his basement hideout eventually.

 

In his panic, Beryl hadn’t found the time or energy to hate or blame them.  It was very explictly stated in Imperial law that anybody found to bear the Crest must be turned over to the military.  If soldiers from Zeal found out that he bore the Crest on their own, they would undoubtedly assume the community had hidden him.  The punishment for that transgression would be swift and brutal. The logic of their decisions was laid out in his mind, and he clung to that idea to stop himself from spiralling into rage and despair.  The fact that his pursuers were the community who’d taken care of him and provided for him without demanding anything of him in return was a weight that he felt keenly. The girl who’d ran, Beryl had known her since before his parents’ accident, he’d played with her and dozens of other kids, went to classes with them, learned almost everything he knew alongside them.

 

Almost everything.  Sorcery he’d learned on his own.

 

The Crest of the Moon had not just physically manifested on his flesh and altered his development as he’d progressed through puberty, but also attuned him to Sorcery in a way that was profane for someone born on Kaaz to be.  In all honesty, if all it had done was make his body more feminine, he probably wouldn’t have minded much. The Sorcery too seemed useful in a purely practical sense. His drive to learn and understand it more fully was a persistent, immutable pull on his desires that he’d never been able to deny, but one that had never brought him any pleasure or emotional satisfaction.  His problem was purely political; the Crest had made him into a pariah.

 

He squeezed a bit, and the nub of chalk in his hand crumbled under the pressure.  Beryl yelped as the bit of limestone broke apart and he cupped his palm to catch the pieces and stop them from falling into the dirt.  He stared at the fragments, broken and useless, just like his life. He felt a surge of terror and despair start to wash over him. That was his last piece, he couldn’t write down his thoughts without it, couldn’t make any further adjustments to the Glyph with the precision that this Sorcery would require.  The Glyph that covered the entire back wall of his hideout would be fixed now; he’d ruin it if he tried to change it without a good writing tool. Beryl looked up at his calculations dejectedly, convinced that he’d find some obvious error within moments. He was convinced that he’d find the flawed bit of math or geometry that would cause his Glyph to misfire and end his life.  He’d been double-checking and hoping to find that hidden error for hours now.

 

His eyes flickered across his scrawlings, but he didn’t find any fault with the calculations.  It didn’t  _ look _ like he needed to fix anything.  He took a deep, shuddering breath, and let the broken pieces of chalk fall from his palm into the dirt floor of the cellar.

 

_ Maybe this is a sign? I need to take a leap of faith at some point, don’t I? _

 

Beryl had never believed in stories or doctrine of fiendish consciousness living under the ocean, benevolent beings watching from the stars, or unknowable forces slumbering on the Moon.  Still, when he was about to trust his life to this bit of Sorcery, he couldn’t help but long for the comfort of believing that some Goddess somewhere would forgive him a math error or two.

 

He walked over to the far wall, and placed his palm upon the center of the Glyph.  It was an elaborate chalk outline carved into the rock consisting of hours of hand-drawn and meticulously adjusted Sorcerous expressions and sigils.  He couldn’t help but laugh a little as his eyes wandered over the result of days and days of work. It was such a simple thing he was doing, and yet doing so in the way he required was incredibly complicated.

 

Beryl exhaled slowly, and quietly murmured a few words to incite the Sorcery.  Power flowed through his chest, down his arm, and into the lines of the Glyph. The Glyph itself was just chalk and stone, its true power was an expression of his intent, a way to shape the energy that came from him.  Light slowly suffused through the chalk lines like glowing liquid flowing through lines in the dirt dug with a stick. The light, his Sorcery, reached the ends of the Glyph and there was a brief moment where Beryl became aware of every single detail of his surroundings.  Every scuff in the wall, every plant root sticking out of the ceiling, every piece of his broken chalk lying in the dirt.

 

The next moment, he was weightless, falling, and his opened his mouth to scream in terror.  He hit the ground before he could get it out, and received a mouthful of grass instead. He pushed himself up off the ground, spitting out grass and bits of dirt and trying to get a grasp of where he was.  It was too dark to make out much detail of his surroundings, but the fact that he’d successfully teleported not over the ocean, and also not so far above land that he broke his spine, meant that he’d avoided his worst case scenario.  Whether or not he’d actually successfully teleported to Zeal was another issue entirely. If he had just gotten himself to another section of Kaaz, or even if he’d teleported to another one of Zeal’s colonies, his fate would ultimately not be much better than if he’d fallen thousands of kilometers into the Endless Ocean.

 

His eyes adjusted to the gloom quickly enough.  The pitiful flickering light of the candle he’d been using in his basement wasn’t much brighter than the spattering of stars that were out tonight.  Laid out ahead of him was a series of slowly declining grassy hills that went on for perhaps two or three kilometers before they ended in a sheer drop to the Endless Ocean far far below.  It was the same kind of terrain that could be found on many of the floating islands that humanity lived upon, he could be on Zeal just as easily as he could be on Kaaz. Beryl glanced to the left and right to try and judge the curvature of the outer end of the island which he could theoretically use to extrapolate the size of the landmass. He gave up after a few moments, it was too dark and while Beryl had been good at most academic subjects, geometry and geography had never been strong points of his.  With a shake of his head, he turned around, resolving himself to climbing up the slope he found himself on so that he could get a better vantage point.

 

A massive expanse of intricate stone buildings, laboratories, complexes, and palaces spread out ahead of him not more than a few hundred meters away.  The buildings were constructed with elaborate curving and twisting architecture, bending into shapes that tested the limits of both gravity and the creativity of the Sorcerers that formed them.  Lights softly glittered everywhere, like dozens of constellations had descended out of the sky to adorn the outlines of the city. Even as far away as Beryl was, he could see flickers of motion along walkways, bridges, and in backlit windows as people moved about even at this late hour.  Behind him was terrain that could be found of any of the twenty Floating Islands, but ahead of him was something that existed in only one place in the world.

 

The Grand City of Zeal, heart of the Empire.

 

***

 

Zeal didn’t have a tailor that Beryl could visit in the same way that he would have back home, and not just because the people here would kill him if they knew where he was from.  Zeal had a verticality to it that he found disorienting. Structures were narrow and tall, formed and reinforced with Sorcery. Walkways wound around and through huge building complexes.  At one point, he’d seen a pair of teenagers leap off one of the highest bridges, laughing and wrestling with one another as they plummeted slowly through the air as though they were actually sinking to the bottom of a lake.  Several adults had eyed the roughhousing with dour looks on their faces, but nobody had stopped them.

 

Beryl moved gingerly along the pathways of Zeal, his presence masked by invisibility Sorcery.  The evocation wasn’t perfect, it only worked so long as Beryl stayed in direct line of sight with the New Moon, which he (obviously) couldn’t see very well.  He’d stolen some food easily enough straight off the table of a cafe without anybody noticing, but a set of clothes was proving to be another challenge entirely.  Most places that dispensed goods and services seemed to be located inside the huge multi-level complexes that made up most of Zeal and not small individual buildings like they would have been back on Kaaz.

 

Beryl was confident enough that he could pass as one of the citizens of Zeal.  Even if his mannerisms were a bit off, the fact that he could control Sorcery would dispel most people’s doubts about whether or not he belonged here.  People did not immigrate to the Island of Zeal. People did not sneak onto the Island of Zeal unless apparently they successfully teleported. It was that very iron-clad security that gave Beryl a chance to blend in with people born here.  Still, all those factors combined wouldn’t do him much good if he was seen dressed like a farm boy from Kaaz.

 

Exhausted after sneaking about the city and maintaining a taxing Sorcery for several hours, Beryl sat down on in some out of the way corner of a walkway several stories up and sighed.  He only had a few hours more until the Moon slipped below the horizon and his Sorcery would fail. Tomorrow night he might be able to refresh the Evocation, but the Moon wasn’t about to wait around in the same celestial position just for him.  He sat for a bit, listening to passing snippets of conversation, wondering what life was like in this city. He only got a few bits and pieces at a time, gossip about the Empress’ new consort, talk about some new construction happening on the north side of the city, rumours about some laboratory in the east going on lockdown.

 

It was almost an hour later, when his attention snapped towards something.  A woman was walking down his pathway, several bags of clothing slung over her forearm.  Beryl rose up to his feet and began to follow her closely, watching his prizes and waiting for his opportunity.  She moved lazily down her walkway, reading a book with her other hand. She went down to ground level and made for an entryway into one of the large compounds.  Beryl’s heart raced. Did he dare try to snatch a bag from her before she got inside and he lost his ability to pursue her? Was it safer to look for another target or to just go for it.

 

“Tavara, dear, I haven’t seen you in ages!” a mature woman’s voice came from the side, making Beryl jump a little before he realized it wasn’t directed at him.  His target stopped, looking up from her book at a matronly woman with gray hair who was sitting in a wheeled chair that seemed to move on its own at a languid pace towards the two of them.  ‘Tavara’ stopped to chat with the elderly woman, and Beryl crept closer, standing as near as he dared lest one of the two women noticed the sound of a third person’s anxious breathing right next to them.  He waited several minutes, grumbling silently at the way the woman continued to hold onto her bags and didn’t set them down.

 

“Mm, I’ve really got to be going.” Tavara murmured politely at the older woman, looking over her shoulder at the building she had been heading towards.

 

“Not without a hug, dear.” Tavara glanced back at the smiling older woman with a look of slight exasperation but didn’t hesitate long enough to be rude.  She set her bags down and leaned in to give her a hug.

 

Beryl stepped in swiftly, snatching one of the bags while the two were occupied and clutching it to his chest.  His Sorcery enveloped the bag as he held it close, rendering it as invisible as him. He stepped back as Tavara finished the hug and gathered her bags back up.  She looked down at them for a brief moment with a frown on her face, and then looked up and around her, gazing right through Beryl’s cloaked form. Seeing nothing she shrugged and waved goodbye to to her associate.  Beryl had already turned around and fled, clutching his new clothing to his chest, feeling the soft form of bundled fabric beneath his fingers. He moved as quickly as he dared towards an abandoned little alcove he’d spotted earlier so that he could get changed.

 

It was a dress.  Of course it was a dress.  In the heat of the moment, Beryl hadn’t even considered that possibility but as he held the distinctly feminine garment in his hands, he wondered with genuine fascination what he’d been expecting.

 

Beryl raised a hand to touch his soft features and heaved a heavy sigh as he started to get changed.  He knew very well that at this point the effect of the Moon’s Crest had made him plenty feminine enough to pass as a girl.  He’d only stayed alive this long by leveraging every single one of the several mixed blessings he’d been given, it made no sense to stop here.

 

A few moments later, he walked out into plain view of any pedestrian still moving about the walkways of Zeal at this hour.  He carried his stolen bag, stuffed with his old ragged brown pants and shirt, and did his absolute best to not look awkward as he walked around in the pale blue dress adorned with a few lines of… something that sparkled.  It was actually somewhat modest, compared to most of the clothing he’d seen women walking around the city in.

 

Beryl fidgeted as he glanced around the city, trying to keep a subtle eye out for people who might be noticing that he wasn’t presenting the way they expected him to.  Nobody looked at him twice. Nobody noticed him at all, it was as though he was just as invisible now as he had been ten minutes ago.

 

_ First step: get rid of these old clothes. _

 

Beryl looked around and spotted a disposal bin a few dozen meters away and walked towards it, grateful that many of the residents of Zeal seemed content to go about barefoot.  He noticed why almost immediately, the stone wasn’t hard and rough against his feet now that he was walking around without his ratty old shoes, and the streets were impeccably clean.  Such comforts were no doubt in ample supply when Zeal controlled all Sorcery and kept several colonies pinned firmly down under its thumb.

 

He ditched his old clothes in the bin when nobody was looking and started walking in a random direction at a leisurely pace.  He had very little idea what else to do at this point beyond trying to find a place to sleep. He’d been walking, climbing, and evoking for hours, not counting the time he’d spent working on the teleportation Glyph earlier that day.  He wondered where people slept in the city. It seemed reasonable that there might be some sort of communal space where he could lay down and have a nap, but there might be rules and etiquette associated with such a space. It could be that the only way he’d avoid sleeping on the street were if he somehow managed to buy an apartment by stealing or earning money using his Sorcery.  Invisibility was certainly one of his more useful tricks when the phase of the Moon allowed for it, but it was far from his only one.

 

It didn’t take long for a hard, crushing exhaustion to sneak up upon him.  The day’s events had drained everything from him, and the prospect of hunting around for a bed to lay on was seeming more and more like a ludicrous waste of time.  He circled back to the little abandoned alcove he’d changed in, and curled up in it, resting his head on his arms. It wasn’t especially comfortable but he’d slept in dirt and grass before.  Sleep took him within moments.

 

***

 

“Hey.  Hey, Kid.”  A voice came that sounded both distant and extremely close.  Some part of Beryl knew it was addressing him, but part of his subconscious rationed that it  _ might _ be talking to someone else, and that was enough for him to try to drift back off into a deeper sleep.

 

“Hey! Are you hurt?” A query came again but this time it was accompanied by a gentle nudge.  With a groan, Beryl rolled over, shielding his eyes from the sun as he cracked them open.

 

“Wuh?” he murmured, not seeing who was talking to him and only barely remembering where he was.  A moment later, something blocked out the intense glare of the sun and the features of a man’s face just a foot or two away from his came into focus.

 

“Are you alright? What are you doing sleeping out here on the street?” he asked.

 

The gravity of the situation suddenly hit Beryl and he scooted back a bit so that he could sit up and give the man a proper look.  He was dressed in the uniform of the Zeal military and another person dressed identically stood just behind him watching the two of them with a concerned look on her face as well.  Beryl had seen soldiers dressed like this before, keeping the aerodocks under lockdown, glaring at locals or sometimes conferring with the Enforcement on Kaaz about fugitives. These two wore identical uniforms, but somehow they looked nothing like the brutish thugs who’d often terrorized the citizens of Kaaz.  These two weren’t glaring at him, and they weren’t wielding shocksticks like they were itching to use them. In fact, the two looked completely unarmed.

 

“I’m just fine.  I, umm, just didn’t have a place to stay last night,” he spoke truthfully, glossing over the details.

 

The two soldiers shared a confused look for a moment before the one kneeling in front of her made eye contact again.  “You… didn’t have a place to stay? Why didn’t you just ask for a spare dormitory?”

 

“I don’t know my way around the city,” Beryl mumbled, blushing and looking away.  He was both acting and not acting at the same time. The embarrassment was genuine, it was just that the emotion he was feeling more keenly right now was a fear of being caught.

 

“Oh, damn,” the female soldier muttered, sucking a breath in through her teeth as though she’d realized something.  Beryl looked at her anxiously, hoping she’d reached some conclusion using the bits of information he’d offered to the two of them that didn’t involve throwing him off the edge of the island.  “Did you duck out of the lockdown at East Lab?”

 

“N-No…” Beryl mumbled, looking away timidly.  He had absolutely no idea what any of what she’d just said actually implied, but it seemed like the best route for him to take was to allow these two to come to a conclusion on their own.  As far as he could tell, they didn’t seem like they were out to build some narrative about him being a delinquent or criminal.

 

“Well,” the male officer said with a sigh, rising up to his feet and extending his hand towards Beryl.  “We can’t send you back to East Lab until the lockdown is lifted and we can’t have you sleeping on the streets.”  When Beryl didn’t immediately take his hand, he smiled patiently at him, the kind of gentle smile that people from back home had given him before they’d started to wonder about his appearance.  “Come on kid, let’s go get you registered so they can assign you a place to stay and an academy. How old are you anyway? Sixteen?”

 

Beryl took his hand as he blinked back tears of genuine gratitude and rose to his feet, taking care to dust off his dress as he did. “No, nineteen,” he answered, again not holding back the truth when there seemed to be no reason to do so.  Beryl could tell the man seemed a bit skeptical of his answer but he didn’t question it. The two of them escorted him into one of the larger buildings using an entrance several stories off the ground. They explained his ‘situation’ to a secretary there using technical terms he didn’t fully understand.  Terms like ‘Lockdown at East Laboratory’, ‘Temporary registration’, and something about ‘assessment’ that sounded ominous.

 

“Name?” The secretary finally asked, looking over at Beryl.

 

“Beryl,” he blurted out, and immediately realized that nobody who lived on Zeal was named after a gemstone.  The secretary rolled his eyes at him and wrote it down anyway. “Fine, you want a cute name, you got it. I don’t suppose you’re going to make things easy on by just telling us who your guardians are?”

 

Beryl blushed and looked away, starting to get a feel for the role he was playing.  They thought he was a runaway, some kid who’d just gotten a bit too rebellious for her own good and gotten in over her head.  It was actually quite fortunate, foolish and naive were roles he was very suited to in this situation. The whole tracking down his ‘guardian’ thing was a bit ominous, but that’d be a problem he could deal with when it came to it.

 

“Thank you, but, umm… Do you have any idea when the lockdown will be lifted?” he asked timidly.

 

The secretary shrugged disinterestedly as he continued to write things into his ledger.  “Six Months? A year? Two? Take it up with the Empress, kid.” After a few moments, he reached into some cubby behind his counter and took out a few forms and started to slide them across the counter towards her.  “Here’s your registration –  _ Don’t  _ lose this.  This is a schedule for the academy you’ve just been assigned to, show up at…  _ this _ orientation and then every class subsequent to it,” He circled one of the calendar dates with black ink and kept on going without even looking at her.  “And here’s a city directory. I’ve got your dormitory listed there and also your interim guardian agency - you  _ need _ to check in with them at least once a week, do you understand?”

 

“Umm… yes?” Beryl offered.  It seemed straightforward enough.

 

The secretary rolled his eyes a little again and then nodded to the two soldiers who were standing a little off to the side.  “It’s recommended that you find a sponsor to act as a more long-term guardian for you, these agencies aren’t meant to fulfil that role for more than a few weeks.  Take that up with them, though. Have a nice day, miss.”

 

***

 

Beryl walked past the threshold into the academy he’d been assigned into with a bit of trepidation.  He’d spent all week living a shockingly relaxed life in the little dormitory he’d been assigned to. A pile of textbooks had been delivered to the room the day after he’d arrived, and he’d been quite content to spend the entire week studying them.  He slept when he was tired, places that ‘sold’ food only asked him for the number on his registration rather than payment, and everybody around him seemed profoundly disinterested in what he got up to. He’d even gone out to get more clothes and they’d been a little more particular about checking his registration information, but hadn’t asked him for money either.  Unfortunately, his registration very clearly had an ‘F’ on his gender marker, so his idea to just reassert that he was a boy felt like a risk that probably wasn’t worth taking just now. Instead he’d just settled for acquiring some slightly more androgynous clothing. Women certainly wore pants less frequently on Zeal than they did on Kaaz, but it didn’t appear to be scandalous as long as he wore a certain style.

 

“Beryl?” A young man probably only a little older than him was waiting inside for him.

 

“Yes.  I’m here for—”

 

“Orientation? Yeah I’m surprised you showed up, everybody skips these,” He chuckled at him and made a gesture where he deliberately placed his hand on the side of his neck.  Beryl had seen it before and been baffled several times before he realized it was just a gesture they used as a friendly greeting. “I’m Vanis, I volunteer to do these orientations.  Follow me babe, I’ll show you around.”

 

Part of Beryl wondered what significance his calling him ‘babe’ had but he decided to drop it.  He’d probably figure it out in a few weeks and then be embarrassed when it was something obvious.  Vanis took him down one hallway, gesturing towards some study rooms and a library and reciting a few quick facts about them that he’d undoubtedly memorized and repeated several times during other orientations.

 

“Look out!” someone shouted suddenly, making Beryl jump and whirl around in surprise, his heart racing.  An incandescent mass of flame was streaking towards him, emanating from a rod carved with Glyphs in the hand of some girl Beryl didn’t know.  Beryl’s instinct wasn’t to dodge out of the way, it wasn’t to scream and shield himself, it was to Evoke a Sorcery. From the center of his chest, a pillar of ice formed, rapidly expanding and rushing outwards towards the flames.  The flame Sorcery dissipated instantly, the heat standing no chance at overpowering the extreme chill that Beryl had conjured. The ice split into a conical shape as it came within a meter of the girl who had cast it at him, engulfing her and  pinning her to the wall without harming her directly. Beryl broke the evocation and stepped backwards, shivering with adrenaline. The horizontal pillar of ice that emanated from where he’d been standing broke under its own weight, crumbling to the floor.  The cage that Beryl had trapped his assailant in remained intact, though it did dominate nearly the entire width of the hallway.

 

There was a moment of silence as nearly a dozen students stared at the spectacle before Vanis exploded with laughter.  “Woooooooow! You just got destroyed, Taniala.” He broke down into more fits of violent laughter, giggling, slapping his thighs and sneaking pleased looks over at Beryl.  The mirth spread a little, the other students starting to chuckle a little though they still looked over at Beryl very warily.

 

“W-What just…?” Beryl asked, suddenly aghast as he realized that he’d either done something wrong or worse, something weird.

 

“Not!  Cool!” A voice yelled from inside the impromptu prison of ice as the girl Beryl had trapped started to melt her way out.  The evocated ice melted into vapor as Taniala broke it apart with as much heat as she could safely use without scorching herself in the process.

 

“Taniala thought it would be funny to prank you with some flash fire.  It’s a pretty harmless flame Sorcery but it looks a lot like a fireball if you’re not paying attention.

 

The embarrassment that Beryl had been feeling suddenly intensified as he realized just what he’d done.  Aghast, he darted forward and laid his hands upon the ice, triggering a Sorcery that would dissipate the conjured material.  The ice hissed and crumbled, and a few moments later, Taniala was free and alternating between scowling at Beryl and scowling at Vanis.  She levelled a finger at Beryl’s chest, unknowingly pointing directly at the Moon Crest.

 

“Not cool.”  She then looked over at Vanis accusatorily.  “You told her, didn’t you? Nobody evokes like that on instinct.”   
  
“Sorry, I can’t take credit for this one.  I think you actually just scared the poor newbie half to death,” Vanis continued to snicker, but his laughter was starting to die down and he was wiping tears from his eyes.

 

“What exactly is going on here?” a cold feminine voice came from behind him.  It sent a deeper shiver down Beryl’s spine than had the frigid temperatures he’d just evoked.  He turned around slowly and saw a tall girl in an ornate-looking gown surveying the scene of the prank.  She looked old enough to be a senior at the academy, and there was something about both her presence and her attire that indicated to Beryl that she was far more important than a regular student here.

 

Vanis straightened up a little and changed his tone when he answered, but he still had a confident air about him.  “No problem, Analisse, we just–”

 

“You are tormenting this poor girl?” Analisse interrupted him and gave him a look that let him know she didn’t need him to answer the question.

 

“H-Huh? No… we…” Vanis’ eyes went a little wide and he looked over at Beryl, flustered like he’d just done something far more extraordinary than the freezing Sorcery he’d just performed.  Beryl kept his eyes forward on the newcomer, not understanding what was happening beyond the fact that Vanis was clearly being put in his place.

 

“These little pranks of yours are over.  Do you understand me?” Analisse spoke with a deathly finality as she continued her withering stare towards Vanis.

 

Vanis opened his mouth as if to protest, but no words came out.  “Yes, Ana,” he finally murmured. “Should I finish the orientation?”

 

“You volunteered to do so,” Analisse replied, and finally looked over at Beryl.  He shuddered a little, trying not to shrink away from the intimidating presence. The fact that this woman was absolutely gorgeous on top of it did little to set him at ease.  “That,” she said flatly, gesturing at the wall where Beryl had aimed his Sorcery. “Is not to be repeated.”

 

“Sorry, Ma’am,” Beryl mumbled, breaking eye contact and looking down at his feet.

 

“Do not apologize, I was actually somewhat impressed.”  Beryl looked back up, a little stunned at the praise. He’d never actually  _ been _ praised for his Sorcery before.  With no frame of reference, he’d always assumed that he’d be utterly lacking in talent compared to a Zealian.  “That does not mean that such displays are acceptable indoors, intentional or otherwise.”

 

“Of course, Ma’am, I understand,” Beryl nodded, feeling his tongue briefly dart across his dry lips.

 

Analisse’s expression changed a little as he spoke.  The tiniest coy little smile crept across her face and she spent a moment in silence just… looking at Beryl.  He tried not to squirm as she inspected him, but doubted that he really did very well. She eventually looked over at Vanis and gave him a nod before walking past the two of them, down the hall that Beryl had iced over moments before.

 

“Who was that?” Beryl whispered to Vanis as he led him through the hallways of the academy, standing a little closer to him this time.

 

Vanis gave her another confused look.  “You’re not from the city, are you?”

 

“...No?” he answered.

 

“That’s Annalisse Trecorya, one of the Empress’ nieces.  She’s, uhh, sixth in line of succession, or something, but a thousand times more important than us.” Vanis explained, looking agitated.  “If my guardians find out I pissed her off I’ll be in so much trouble…”

 

They finished the rest of the orientation in terse near-silence, Vanis sticking to his explanations and continually looking over his shoulder for Analisse.  He explained in brief detail what all the rooms were for, who all the professors were, and various other bits of academy etiquette to her over the next hour or so.  The two of them moved in a loop through the academy, ending up with them coming back to the entrance where they’d met.

 

“Hey, sorry about all that, by the way,” Vanis spoke up as he took her to the door, no doubt only apologizing now because it was going to be his last chance.  “I actually feel bad that I brought you to Ana’s attention. She’s pretty intense and acts like she owns the academy. Well, her family basically does, actually.”

 

Vanis gave him a little bit of a wave and went into one of the reading rooms he’s shown him earlier, leaving Beryl with nothing to do but go home.

 

***

 

Attending classes at Trecorya Academy was a mix of trivially easy and extremely frustrating for Beryl.  As it turned out, the Sorcery classes were all far beneath Beryl’s skill level and the greatest challenge he faced was not drawing too much attention to himself.  The most interesting thing he learned was that his Sorcery was somehow fundamentally different from what he was being taught bt the professors. That difference obviously had something to do with the Lunar crest upon his chest.  He’d thought that all of the people born on Zeal would have had something similar, if not a birthmark that allowed them to draw upon the Moon’s power then something less conspicuous. He’d assumed it wouldn’t be exactly like his, it clearly hadn’t made any of the men as feminine as his Crest had made him.  But, as he studied more, he began to understand just how different he was.

 

Many of Beryl’s evocations relied upon his position relative to the Moon itself, the amount and type of power he was able to draw upon varied upon the time of day and the Moon’s phase.  The Zealians didn’t draw upon the Moon’s power directly, but rather through a conduit they just called “The Source.” The Source required some proximity from the ones evoking power from it, which is why, Beryl was shocked to learn, Zealians couldn’t invoke their Sorceries directly if they left the island.  Instead they bound Sorceries to objects like the shocksticks so that their soldiers could use Sorceries to enforce their hegemony upon their colonial subjects.

 

But while Beryl found the Sorcery lessons trivially easy, and they were the majority of the curriculum, that was not all he was expected to study.  Beryl had mostly taught himself to read back on Kaaz just so that he could read the crumbling tome of Sorcery he’d found in the library. He’d later learned that such a tome should never have been in that library and he could only guess that it had avoided notice because nobody knew what it was.

 

Being self-taught did  _ not  _ make his literature and language lessons go smoothly at all, and he barely struggled by with his history lessons too.  He’d been studying his butt off for two weeks straight just to avoid drawing too much attention to himself. He could explain away being a bad student or a slow learner, but it would be hard to explain why he didn’t know basic facts that any child born on the island did.

 

“Hey, could you keep it down?” Beryl asked, his fist clenching in frustration as he looked up from his stupid, awful literature assignment.  Taniala was seated a few tables away with two of her friends and they were chatting and laughing loudly.

 

Taniala looked over at Beryl and made a rude gesture at him.  “Freeze me again, why don’t you?” she jeered back, before returning to her conversation even more loudly than before.

 

Beryl just exhaled and smoothed down the page of notes he’d crumpled a little, determined to just tolerate the disturbance.  He only lasted another few minutes before his distracted mind started to toy with the idea of actually freezing Taniala like she’d asked.  Instead, an idea for a different Sorcery came to him, and he decided to give it a try. He wove his evocation, sending tendrils of his power to manipulate the air pressure around him.  It took a few minutes to form it right, but he managed to create a small shell of near-vacuum space around his spot at the table. The sound around him died off instantly, leaving him only with the tiniest buzz of noise that was carrying through the floor and the table.

 

Satisfied, he held onto the evocation and went back to work, ignoring Taniala and her obnoxious friends.  He worked like that for another hour or so and holding onto the power became sort of a background effort that he barely even noticed anymore.  It wasn’t any noise that caught his attention, but a hand on his shoulder made him yelp as he dropped the Sorcery and spun around to see who it was.

 

“Ms. Beryl,” Analisse stood over him, her hand on his shoulder, her gaze intense upon him.  “Were you using Sorcery just now?”

 

Beryl felt the blood drain out of his face and his stomach dropped into his legs.  He stared at her wide-eyed for several seconds, trying to process whatever it was Analisse was implying with her words and tone.  Using Sorcery in the school wasn’t forbidden, it was actually encouraged.

 

“It was… they were being loud, so…” Beryl looked desperately over at the table where Taniala had been, but the reading room was abandoned now save for the two of them.  “Is that… against the rules?”

 

“I’d like to have a word with you in private if you don’t mind, Ms. Beryl,” Analisse responded, ignoring Beryl’s blubbering answer and follow up question.  She looked up towards the door to the hallway and made a tiny gesture with her head. “My family maintains an office in this academy.”

 

“Err…” Beryl tried to stall a little but Analisse had already released his shoulder and started walking away with a silent implication that he was to follow.  Beryl started to hastily pack up his books but her voice stopped him.

 

“They will be there when we’re done, Ms. Beryl.”  Reluctantly, Beryl set his pen and notes down on the table and rose to his feet.  Analisse had already exited the reading room into the hallway and he was forced to scramble a little to catch up with her.  She walked through the Academy without looking back at him for even an instant, but Beryl knew that she knew he was there. She stopped in front of a locked door that Vanis had just glossed over during the orientation and placed her palm upon the front of it.  A glow spread throughout the wood and metal for a moment as Glyphs came to life for an instant and then faded once again. The door clicked and swung open silently, admitting the two of them to a small, tidy office adorned with a few tasteful pieces of expensive-looking furniture and art. As Beryl stepped inside, Analisse put her hand on his back and moved him to the side so that she could close and lock the door behind them.  Beryl felt a lump form in his throat as the door clicked shut, trapping him in here with the intimidating woman.

 

“I’ve been watching you, little gemstone,” Analisse spoke softly, looking over at him with a fierce intensity.  “And I’ve seen several things that don’t quite add up. She moved closer towards him and he backed up instinctively until he was pressed up against the far wall.  He didn’t answer her, or try to explain himself. He knew such efforts would be pointless, he could no sooner convincingly lie to this woman than he could stop breathing altogether.

 

“No comment? No Explanation?” She asked, cocking an eyebrow at him.

 

“I… I only...” Beryl stammered, trembling.  He just wanted to study quietly, to start his life anew, to not be so afraid anymore.  His terror was so great that he couldn’t even get those words out, and his mind started to run through a half dozen nightmare scenarios of torture and execution that he was convinced were about to happen to him all at once

 

Analisse watched his reaction interestedly for several moments.  “Take your blouse off.” she finally said.

 

Beryl recoiled slightly in confusion, blinking at her.  Take his blouse off? Was this actually some kind of weird sex thing? Was he actually just being sexually assaulted?  The thought that this woman was only going to violate his bodily autonomy and not throw him into the Ocean was almost a relief for a moment before he realized that he couldn’t do as she’d asked.  Without his blouse on, Analisse would see the Crest of the Moon on his chest, clear as crystal. His eyes flickered towards the door, trying to formulate an escape plan, a way to incapacitate Analisse and flee the building.

 

“Beryl,” Analisse’s voice re-grabbed his attention and he looked at her.  “If you want to avoid doing as I ask, your only option is to wield your Sorcery and overpower me, so either do it or stop wasting my time.”  She took another step towards him so that her form blocked out the light of the office’s two small lamps. “Take it off.”

 

The truth of her words struck him like a mallet, and he immediately realized that no matter how terrified he was, no matter how much he wanted to keep his secret safe, he couldn’t just attack her.  It wouldn’t be right, and it wouldn’t work. Even if he overpowered her, what then? He’d be caught almost immediately. Tears formed in his eyes as his shaking hands slowly went up to the buttons on his blouse.  His fingers grabbed ahold of the top button and paused there, tugging slightly on the little bit of brass but lacking the resolve or the dexterity to undo it effectively.

 

“Please.  Please don’t… Don’t throw me off…” He sobbed softly as his fingers undid the first button.

 

“Throw you off the island?” Analisse asked, sounding amused.  Beryl nodded as he stared at the floor and grasped the second button.  It came out of its hole with a little more difficulty and the V of his exposed chest grew a little bigger.

 

“My dear little gemstone, if you are what I think you are, then executing you is the last thing I intend to do,” There was an excitement and anticipation in Analisse’s voice as she watched him disrobe.  What the cause of that excitement was, Beryl couldn’t guess, he could only move his hands down to the third button. He paused there for a second, shuddering as the anticipation built up to unbearable levels, and then undid it and pulled the top half of his blouse open all at once, revealing the Crest of the Moon to her gaze.

 

Analisse gasped softly as she saw it.  The Crest was a circular birthmark of slightly raised, bumpy flesh just above his solar plexus.  It was patterned to match exactly the markings of the full moon. “You  _ do _ bear it…” Analisse whispered reverently.  A moment later, Beryl felt her fingers on his flesh and he gasped softly.  He looked up at her, completely confused as she pressed her hand against the mark on his flesh, exploring its contours with a rapturous little smile on her face.

 

“Ma’am?” Beryl asked, wondering what exactly was happening.

 

“So beautiful…” Analisse murmured, sounding like she was talking more to herself.  With Beryl not even realizing it, Analisse’s other hand swiftly went and undid the remaining buttons on Beryl’s blouse.  She placed both of her hands on Beryl’s chest, fingers running across the smooth flesh until they found his nipples. She did the smallest movement with her fingers, but it trapped both of Beryl’s nipples between her middle and ring fingers and she put just a little bit of a squeeze on them as her thumbs continued to trace the contours of the Crest in the middle of his chest.

 

“A-Aah!” Beryl yelped softly, Analisse’s attentions sending a jolt of electricity through his body.  He looked directly into her eyes and she was looking back at him now, no longer transfixed by the sight of the crest.

 

“Does my little gemstone like that, now?” she teased with a joyous grin on her face.

 

Any notion of lying to or resisting this woman found no purchase in Beryl’s mind.  He whimpered softly and nodded at her. She responded by kneading her fingers into the soft fleshy bits of his chest a little harder and then giving his sensitive little buds a stronger pinch.  Beryl was mostly flat-chested but the Crest seemed to have redistributed a decent amount of his body fat into his chest. So, as Analisse’s fingers aggressively grasped at his breasts, they found plenty enough flesh to squeeze.  She leaned in closely, putting her face right next to Beryl’s.

 

“You are  _ very  _ special, Beryl,” she whispered.  “There are some things that I need from you, things only you can do.”  Her breath was hot in his ear, and she purred excitedly as she spoke. “...And if you’re a good girl for your Mistress as you do them, I’ll take extra special care of you, and even play with your needy little body.  Doesn’t that sound nice?”

 

“Yes, Mistress,” Beryl whimpered, pressing his body against her groping hands.  He didn’t know what she was talking about, but he did know that he didn’t want her to stop.  He also couldn’t help but dread that the other shoe was about to drop. She’d seen the accursed Crest, after all.

 

Analisse chuckled softly at his response, pulling back from him a little and shifting her hands to grasp his nipples between her thumb and forefinger so that she could pull on them a little more firmly.  “I knew you’d be an obedient little slut the first time I saw you.” She gave his nipples a firm pull, fleshy mounds tenting outwards with the force of her squeeze. Beryl gasped in pain, his tender nipples throbbing at the torment.  Yet, somehow, his urge to let Analisse do whatever she wanted with him only intensified, a tingling masochistic thrill passing through him that he didn’t fully understand.

 

“Now, I think my little gemstone deserves a reward for showing me what I wanted to see.”  She released his right nipple and moved her left hand downwards, fingers deliberately brushing across the surface of the Crest as they went.  Her fingers grabbed hold on the little latch at the top of his pants and unsnaped it with practiced ease before slipping below the waistband. Beryl breathed in a shaky breath, meeting Analisse’s intense gaze as her fingers pressed against the soft flesh of Beryl’s pubic mound on their way downward.  As her hand slowly wrapped itself around Beryl’s hard little shaft, her expression slowly changed until she was giving Beryl a somewhat confused look.

 

“Gemstone.  Why do you have a penis?” She asked, her hand squeezing said penis softly.

 

It took Beryl a moment to realize that of course Analisse was expecting him to have a vagina.  “I’m a boy… the Crest, it…” he mumbled, suddenly feeling very foolish.

 

“Ah, I suppose that’s right.  I do recall reading that children born with the Moon’s Crest can develop this way.”  She gave his cock a little squeeze and smiled again, melting away most of Beryl’s fears that she might be mad about his body.  “Well, that changes a few specifics but it’s not a problem.” Analisse removed her hands from Beryl’s body, and gripped him firmly by the shoulder.  She spun him around and pressed his upper body against the wall, bending him at the waist. His butt was pushed backwards into Analisse’s other hand, and her fingers dug in, gripping his bum firmly.

 

“Stay,” she instructed, resting one hand on his back as the other pulled his pants down off his hips so that the garment bunched up right below his glutes.  “Cute panties for a ‘boy,’ precious,” she snickered softly. Her fingers slipped below the waistband of his panties, middle and pointer fingers dipping down into the crack between his cheeks.

 

“Mistress? What are you–” Beryl tried to straighten up a little bit and turn around to look at what Analisse was doing.  Her hand quickly found his shoulder, and she roughly pressed him back into the position she’d put him in initially.

 

“Be still,” she repeated herself, her tone much more stern even as the fingers sliding further into the crack of his butt were gentle and playful.  She quickly found his hole, her fingertips circling and probing it gently. “Trust that your Mistress knows what your body wants.” Her other hand disappeared off his shoulder and this time he didn’t move even as he heard her rummaging around somewhere behind him.  He heard the soft metallic rasp of a lid being removed, and then Analisse adjusted the angle of the hand that was down his panties so that her wrist was pulling the waistband further outwards. Something cold and wet poured down the crack of his butt and he yelped in surprise.  Analisse shushed him softly as she continued to pour a fairly copious amount onto him. A short while later, she’d put the container away and thoroughly coated her fingers and his hole in the slippery liquid. Her other hand returned to his back and held him firmly in place without putting even an ounce of force upon him.

 

With a single twist, Analisse’s middle finger curled inward, the digit penetrating his tight ring up to the second knuckle.  Beryl’s fingers curled slightly as he experienced the strange sensation, but to his surprise he found himself trusting Analisse just as she’d told him.  It took barely any time at all for her to work her entire middle finger into his ass and then to start twisting and pumping it back and forth inside his tight hole.  A soft gasp escaped Beryl’s lips as he struggled to make sense of the sensations he was experiencing. It was a sort of gentle sexual pleasure roiling over him. He found himself panting and moaning softly, pushing his ass back against her hand and matching her motions with subtle cues from his body.

 

“That’s a good girl, enjoy your reward,” Analisse cooed encouragingly as she withdrew her finger until only the tip was inside and then paired it with another.  She pushed the two slickened digits back inside, the added width making Beryl wince for just a moment as his hole was forced to stretch a bit. She pushed gently yet steadily until both fingers were buried inside him up to the last knuckle.

 

Beryl closed his eyes as his legs wobbled a little.  Analisse curled her fingers downward a little, and started to rub in small circles, her fingers slowly wandering and exploring the fleshy walls of his rectum.  The rubbing and stretching was a strange but pleasant feeling, but as Analisse’s fingers hit a certain spot, the sensation was amplified. Beryl clenched down hard on her hand and cried out softly, scooting away a little bit to alleviate the intensity.

 

“There it is,” Analisse chuckled softly, keeping her fingers firmly planted upon that spot as she moved up beside him.  She laid her forearm across Beryl’s back and leaned in, using her height and weight to forcibly pin him to the wall. She leaned in, and whispered in his ear.  “I’d tell you to be still for this part, but I know you’ll never be able to.” Her teeth gently nipped at his ear as she started.

 

Analisse started to pump her fingers hard and steady against that spot inside of him.  Beryl felt his body shake and buck against the overwhelming pleasure and sensation, but Analisse leaned in harder, keeping his body immobile as her fingers ravaged his ass.  He threw his head backwards, moaning and squealing as she ‘played with him.’ He looked over at her, eyes barely focused as the pleasure radiated through him.

 

She was watching him with a wicked little grin on her face as Beryl shook and trembled with ecstasy.  He noticed that her eyes had a slight golden gleam to them, and she held his gaze as she kept thrumming those incredible fingers of hers inside his ass, driving him to a pleasure that was far beyond his poor body’s ability to process.

 

“T-Too much!” Beryl wailed, paying no heed to the volume of his voice as Annalise continued to forcefully milk him.  His hole made lewd squelching noises as her pistoning accelerated over time, the waves of sensation growing and overlapping until he couldn’t tell where one ended and another began.

 

“That’s my decision, precious,” Annalise snickered at him, pressing her weight harder against his and  _ hammering  _ that spot inside him with her fingers.  Beryl shrieked as he succumbed to what his Mistress was doing to him.  He lost all sense of where he was or what was happening as his entire body seemed to orgasm.  He drifted on a wave of bliss, completely losing his footing and collapsing down to his knees.  He was vaguely aware of Analisse assisting his descent but he was too fuck-drunk to actually realize what was happening.  His body twitched and shuddered even as she laid him down on the floor. His breathing came in shallow gasps for several minutes as he was dimly aware of Analisse moving around the small office as he recovered from the most intense experience of his life.

 

One of the first things Beryl became aware of once he calmed down was the sticky damp spot all over the front of his panties.  He reached down and brushed his fingers along the soaked cloth, wondering when exactly he had ejaculated since there had been no one moment of pleasure that was distinct from another.  Analisse’s fingers ran through his hair, snapping him out of his stupor and drawing his attention towards her.

 

“Was that your first time, precious?” she asked.  Her face was calm but had just the slightest hint of a smile on it.

 

Part of Beryl wanted to be embarrassed but somehow he couldn’t be, all he felt was a sort of adoration towards her, a connection and a dependence towards this woman that he couldn’t understand.  “Yes,” he answered, staring at her rapturously and softly marveling at how strong these feelings were.

 

Analisse nodded and rose up from her kneeling position.  She walked over to the desk at the far wall and sat down, pulling some papers out of a drawer.  “Come here, gemstone. Answer some questions for me.” As she walked away, Beryl felt the intensity of his emotions calm down a little, as though the mere proximity to her had been what was pulling on him.  He shakily rose to his feet, pulling his pants back on and picking his discarded blouse up off the floor. He sat on one of the comfy chairs in the office next to the desk and watched Analisse demurely, waiting for her to speak.

 

“You do not actually have guardians in East Laboratory, I assume?” she asked, looking up at him from her paper.  He hesitated for a moment, wondering not only what he should say in response, but also wondering what it was that she wanted to hear from him.

 

“No, I don’t, Mistress.  My parents died in an accident when I was young.”  When he answered, he was surprised to see her simply nod like he’d told her his favorite colour.

 

“Where are you from, then? How did you stay out of the system until now?”

 

“I’m… from Kaaz, Mistress…” he mumbled, looking down at his feet.  Analisse was silent for a few moments, and the silence drew his eyes back up to her.  She was looking at him intensely, a puzzled frown on her face.

 

“How in the world did you make it to the Grand City if you were born on Kaaz?” she asked quietly.

 

“I… teleported, Mistress,” Beryl explained, blushing a little as he realized how silly he sounded.  “I did the calculations, made a Glyph, and…” he trailed off. Analisse had a smile on her face, but it was a different expression than one he’d seen on her before.  Her grin had a wickedness to it, a triumph.

 

“Oh, precious… You’re every bit the vessel that I imagined you might be,” she whispered.  After a brief moment of silence, she leaned in towards him, her expression grim and serious.  “But I know that I only stress a point you already know when I say this, Beryl. That you are both lowborn and that you bear the Crest makes your very existence a heresy in the Empire’s eyes.  In concealing you, I make my life as dependent upon keeping this secret as yours is.”

 

Beryl was taken aback by the intensity of her statement.  He hadn’t thought even for a moment that she would put herself at risk for… for him?  “Mistress, I can’t ask you—”

 

Analisse interrupted him with a laugh as she pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote something at the bottom.  “Let’s be clear. I am doing this to advance my own interests.” She slid the paper over to Beryl along with a pen.  “Sign this.”

 

He looked down at the paper which was covered with impenetrable technical jargon and a flowing signature with large letters at the bottom that had no doubt been put there just a moment ago by Analisse.

 

“Can I ask-”

 

“Guardianship authorization.  You are now a ward of the Trecorya family, precious.”

 

“But–” She gave him a brief withering glance that killed his protest in the cradle.  He swallowed and picked up the pen, signing the bottom of the document right under Analisse’s name.  “So… what do I do now?”

 

“In general, all you need to do is what you’re told,” Analisse replied, taking the paper from him and setting it aside.  “Your presentation and demeanor need some work. This whole…” She gestured at him disdainfully. “...Tomboy look that you’re going for is just dreadful, but it’s nothing I can’t fix.  For now, go back to your studies. I’ll collect you and bring you to our estate when I’m done here.” She dismissed him with a wave, and Beryl couldn’t help but feel a little off-put at how brusque she was being.  He wanted to stay here with her, he wanted her attention and he wanted to understand and articulate the wellspring of feelings that was surging within him, but he also didn’t want to argue with her. He quietly put his blouse back on, buttoning it up twice because he misaligned the holes the first time.  Analisse didn’t even look at him as he dressed himself and then stood up to walk to the door. He paused with his hand on the handle, hoping she’d say something to him, but she didn’t, so he left with the sound of her pen scratching on a paper behind him.

 

Beryl let out a happy sigh as he strolled through the halls of the Academy.  As nerve-wracking as the experience had been, it was a relief that someone else finally knew, that he could share his burden with someone.  Beyond that, the fact that she had seen the Crest upon his chest and accepted it without pause was an experience he’d never expected to have.  Plus, her comment about ‘fixing’ his presentation sounded like she wanted to let him go back to being a boy, which was a… relief…?

 

He stopped in the middle of the hallway, frowning a little.  Was it a relief? He thought it would be. It seemed like it was supposed to be.  It didn’t…  _ feel _ like a relief, though.  He wasn’t quite sure what that meant.

 

He returned to the reading room which was occupied now by a different group of students talking and studying.  They looked over at him as he went to his spot in the corner, and he paused with his hand upon the cover of one of his textbooks, feeling…  _ very _ scrutinized.

 

“Was that you in the Trecorya office?” One of Beryl’s classmates, a boy named Kido was the one to finally speak up.  A sort of amused buzz seemed to pass through the small group as the question was posed and Beryl couldn’t help but feel like the question was a trap.

 

“Yes.  Analisse just… wanted to ask me something.” Beryl blushed as he opened the heavy book, looking intently at his notes to conceal his flushing face.

 

“Uh-huh,” Kido snickered.  “Your shirt is inside out, you know.”

 

Beryl looked down and immediately saw that Kido was telling the truth.  “I… uhh…”

 

“The whole Academy heard you screaming, too,” one of the other students added, and the whole lot of them burst into giggles.

 

Beryl looked at the group of students with a mortified expression.  Several excuses and explanations flitted through his head but they were all extremely unconvincing.  He wanted to just pack up his things, go home to his dormitory, and then vanish forever. Barring that, he considered finding some corner of the Academy to study in away from his classmates.

 

But Analisse had told him to wait, and the thought of disobeying her made his stomach turn.

 

He half-heartedly tried to get back to studying.  The literature material he’d been given had been opaque and impossible when he wasn’t distracted and now trying to make headway on it was beyond useless.

 

“Beryl,” her voice made him jump, and he looked up to see her at the door, giving him a ‘come hither’ gesture.

 

“She’s yours now, Ana?” Kido asked, his tone still tinged with amusement but he’d stripped out the derision now that Analisse was here.

 

“Obviously,” Analisse replied coldly, giving Kido a disapproving frown.

 

Kido caught the implication in her look and cleared his throat nervously,  “Right. Not my business, sorry.” He stole a quick glance at Beryl, then looked back down at his own work.

 

Beryl finished gathering up his things and joined Analisse at the door.  She placed her hand on his cheek for a moment, giving him a warm little half-smile.  “Let’s get you into your new home, precious.”


	2. Peace of Mind

Beryl’s classmates may have been eager to tease him when he was alone, but it was clearly a completely different story when he was with Analisse.  As he followed her out of the Academy, several students definitely noticed that the two of them were together. In spite of that, he didn’t hear a single mocking or gossipy utterance out of any of them.  Many of them actually looked at him with a sort of respect or curiosity, in stark contrast to his near-invisibility prior to now.

 

They headed north across the cityscape, Beryl following close on his Mistress’ heels.  She didn’t say much to him and he felt that the silence was a tad oppressive. The walk was only about fifteen minutes across Zeal’s various walkways, the two of them mostly took spiralling upward paths rather than actually covering much lateral distance.  The complex she led them to was very high up, so much so that Beryl nervously kept his eyes locked straight ahead so that he didn’t have to look at how long of a drop it was to the ground. He remembered the two teenagers who’d deliberately fallen off of a high point when he’d first entered the city, but he didn’t think he’d ever be comfortable with these heights even knowing it was safe.  The outside of the massive complex that Analisse was heading towards wasn’t guarded and there wasn’t even a closed door. He quickly saw though that the “door” to the street was actually just an entry into a spartan antechamber. There  _ were _ several soldiers milling about in the antechamber, two were watching the door and another three were playing tiles at a table off to the side.  Off to the other side was a reception area that was unoccupied but housed a desk and several shelves lined with logbooks.

 

“Miss Trecorya,” One of the two soldiers at the door stepped forward and bowed before her.  “Welcome home.” He glanced over at Beryl and looked like he kind of wanted to say something about his presence here.  Thinking about asking who the weird awkward girl was, probably.

 

“Mmhmm,” Analisse stopped and brushed a bit of her hair out of her face, giving the soldier an impatient look laced with unspoken threat.  He winced a little and stepped to the side without saying anything about Beryl, and his companion opened the door for the two of them.

 

To Beryl, everything in Zeal, including the little dormitory he’d been living in had been ludicrously extravagant.  The Trecorya estate was so opulent that he didn’t even fully understand what anything was or did. The entryway was bigger than any barn he’d ever been in.  It seemed like Every other ornament or decoration was made out of gold or diamond or something sparkly. It made Beryl nervous, he felt like he could break things worth more than he was just by looking at them wrong.  Doors and hallways went off in several directions, leading further into the compound.

 

“Mother,” Analisse spoke in her normal voice, but there was a reverberating Sorcerous echo that spread throughout the room and beyond.  Analisse walked to the base of the grand stairway in the middle of the room and waited, Beryl fidgeting nervously behind her.

 

“Yes, darling?”  An older woman emerged from a side room.  She was probably not much older than fifty but she sat in one of the Sorcery-powered wheelchairs that Beryl had seen people around the city using.  She had her hair tied back in a neat bun to contrast Analisse’s flowing waves. Her face wasn’t anywhere near as stern or demanding as her daughter’s, but Beryl could see she was no kindly grandmother about to offer Beryl a plate of cookies, either.

 

“I brought Beryl,” she said, putting her hand on Beryl’s back and nudging him forward a bit.  “The poor girl with no guardian that I wished to sponsor.” Beryl picked up immediately that Analisse’s mother probably didn’t know about the Crest, and that it wouldn’t be wise for Beryl to mention it in front of her.

 

“She’ll be staying here, then?” her mother asked, giving Beryl a look that was critical but not harsh or hostile.  She clearly didn’t seem  _ angry _ that Beryl was here but felt the need to assess her anyway.

 

“Yes,” Analisse looked over at Beryl.  “Precious, this is my mother, The Lady Yavimay, Empress Schala’s sister.  Mind your manners and curtsy.”

 

Beryl felt a surge of alarm and immediately dipped down into his best curtsy, rushing so much to do so that he stumbled and had to take several quick steps off to the side to not fall flat on his face.  He corrected his balance and tried to retake the pose as he’d seen it done before. “Ma’am,” he murmured, keeping his eyes down.

 

Yavimay snorted at the clumsy display.  “Where’s she from? The Colonies?” Beryl felt the blood in his veins turn to ice at the unintentional accuracy of the deriding comment.

 

“Mother, there’s no call to be vulgar.”  Analisse interjected with a hint of petulance in her tone that could only come from being someone’s child.  “I haven’t yet collared or trained her, that’s not her fault.” Beryl blinked and looked over at Analisse. Collared? Trained?  He had to admit that this whole ‘Mistress’ thing seemed to resonate with something deep within him but he wasn’t aware that it was a literal Master/slave relationship.  He fidgeted a bit anxiously at that thought, but decided that he’d ask her about it later. It wasn’t like he had much recourse anyway.

 

“Fine.  Embarrass yourself all you wish,” Yavimay spoke with a soft derision that Beryl knew was meant to cut deeper than it might seem.  The wheels on her chair spun in opposing directions and reoriented the chair so that she could roll away and leave Beryl and Analisse alone.

 

“We  _ will _ have to work on your etiquette,” Analisse looked at him critically.  “Mother was needling me with that comment about The Colonies but it is best to avoid such speculation altogether.  These things can progress from cutting comment, to rumour, to investigation, to trial far more quickly than you might think.”

 

“Sorry Ma’am,” Beryl blushed a little.  He knew the truth of her words all too well, that particular process had been midway through playing out back on Kaaz and his accidental reveal of the Crest had only sped it up.  

 

“To begin, I am ‘Mistress’ to you at all times, not Ma’am and never Analisse or Ana.” Analisse said, one hand finding its way to her hip.  “Lady Trecorya will suffice if you need to speak of me in my absence.”

 

“Oh… umm… all the time? Mistress?” he asked.

 

“I’ll be less strict in private,” she said, giving him the opposite answer to what he’d expected.  “I understand that you are ignorant about these things but trust me precious, if we are explicit that our relationship is sexual, it will draw less attention.  If it’s not obvious that you are my plaything, people will wonder why I am keeping you around.” She left it at that and started up the stairs, saying nothing but Beryl knew he was expected to follow her.    

 

She took him to an empty bedroom and ushered him inside, locking the door behind her using Sorcery the same way she’d operated the locks at the office back at the Academy.  “This will be yours, gemstone. It adjoins to mine,” she pointed at a door at the far wall. “You will spend the majority of your time in there attending me, but you shall need a space of your own, nonetheless.”  She glanced up at a clock on the wall and let out a small impatient noise. “My presence is required elsewhere within the hour but I can work on you for a few moments. Disrobe for me.” Without even looking to make sure that he was doing as he’d been told, Analisse walked over to a ridiculously oversized closet and opened the shutters to look inside.  

 

Beryl still felt a little anxious getting undressed in her presence, but reaching up to undo his buttons was certainly far less of an ordeal than last time.  He removed his blouse and walked over to fold and place it neatly atop one of the dressers in the room. He followed suit with his tight pants and then, with only a little pause, his soiled panties.  When he turned around, Analisse already had some replacement clothes picked out for him slung across her arm, and she handed them to him immediately.

 

“Umm… Mistress?” Beryl asked quietly as he looked through the clothes her Mistress had just given him.

 

“You’re to put them on, precious.” she said dismissively, already on her way over to her own room.

 

“No, I mean… do they have to be… girl’s clothes?” Beryl mumbled.

 

Analisse looked over at him and cocked a confused eyebrow at him.  “What else would they be?”

 

“Well, I’m a boy, aren’t I…?”

 

Analisse laughed out loud at that comment.  It was a genuine, spontaneous laughter that made him burn with embarrassment but also showed him an aspect of his Mistress that he’d never seen.  “We are what we’re made into, precious. From what I can see, you’ve quite definitely made yourself into a woman.”

 

“That was just an accident, I had to steal some clothes when I first—”

 

“Beryl,” Analisse interrupted him with a harsh tone.  “This sounds like a plea for validation, not an identity crisis.” Beryl blinked at her in confusion until she just shook her head and let out a small sigh.  She walked back over to him and put her hand on his chin, tilting his face up a few degrees fully capture his attention. “You are whatever your Mistress tells you, understood?”

 

As he stared at Analisse, he felt her words penetrate him, ripping away his doubts and reservations.  She wanted this, and so did Beryl. It was just… never something Beryl had ever thought about, never a thing that seemed attainable, never important enough to consider over the imminent threat of danger.

 

“Yes, Mistress…” Beryl whispered,  _ her _ voice shaky and small.  It felt strangely right, though.  Her voice.

 

“Good, now get dressed.  And if this does somehow develop into an identity crisis, I’ll deal with that too.”  Analisse patted her on the cheek affectionately and went off into her room to presumably let Beryl get dressed.  The clothes that Analisse had laid out for her weren’t the elaborate pieces that she herself wore, but they were feminine, made out of nice material and somehow they also seemed to fit her much better than the other clothes she’d been wearing.  They felt nice, they felt… like she  _ should _ be wearing them.

 

“Much better,” Beryl turned around and saw Analisse inspecting her.  Her Mistress made a little twirling motion with her finger and Beryl followed the cue.  She turned around in place, stopping when Analisse put her arm on her shoulder with her back fully turned.  She slipped a black leather choker around Beryl’s neck and tightened it until it was snug. There was a brief pause, and then Beryl felt a heat at the back of her neck and a heard a quiet sizzling noise.  She tensed up, alarmed at the noise, but didn’t want to pull away. The sound stopped after a few seconds and nothing bad happened say for the fact that the choker was now snug around Beryl’s neck.

 

Analisse spun her around like she was a doll and looked critically at Beryl’s face.  “They’re not pierced?” she asked. Beryl just looked at her bewilderedly for a moment before Analisse just shook her head.  “Be still. This will sting.” She grasped Beryl’s left earlobe between thumb and forefinger, and Beryl felt something in the air as her Mistress began to evocate.  A moment later, there was a sharp pain in Beryl’s earlobe, and she yelped softly. Analisse immediately withdrew her hand and took out a small golden earring, slipping it through the hole she’d just punched in Beryl’s ear.  Without giving her a moment to recover, she then repeated the process with her right ear. She stepped back, and looked Beryl up and down for a moment before sighing softly. Beryl felt a bit of a sinking feeling at the noise.  Had she done something wrong?

 

“It’ll do for now,” Analisse said to herself, and reached over to the table to pick up a few sheets of paper to hand to Beryl.  She glanced at the papers, they were a series of pictures with informational labels. It was… instructions on how to curtsy properly.

 

“Do your school work and practice this,” Analisse told her sternly.  “We’ll start on makeup tomorrow if I can find time.”

 

“Yes Mistress, I will,” Beryl didn’t try to curtsy again, she just bowed her head.

 

“Such a good girl,” Analisse cooed, leaning in and kissing Beryl on the forehead.  “We’ll make you a presentable little slut in no time. And then…” she put her finger to Beryl’s chest and traced the outline of the Moon’s Crest.  “We’ll see about unlocking the secret of  _ that _ particular gift of yours.”  She smiled at Beryl hungrily, and maintained that eye contact for several moments before she tore herself away and made for the door.  “Try not to wander around too much, precious. Ask one of the staff if you need directions.” And with that, she was gone, leaving Beryl alone in this new room with a new wardrobe, new jewelry, new gender…  

 

She looked down at the sheets of paper, and with a determined exhalation, started to practice.

 

***

 

“Hey Beryl-y. Berrie? Do you have a nickname?” Vanis suddenly showed up at the table Beryl was eating at and sat down next to her.

 

“Umm… Mistress calls me precious?” Beryl offered.

 

“Uhh, right, Beryl it is.  So, Ana collared you, huh?”

 

Beryl had always been somewhat socially awkward, but even she knew what was happening right now.  She was associated with Analisse now, that meant her social standing had changed. Being close to her now had some small status associated with it, and Beryl was certainly far more approachable than Analisse was.  It was a surreal feeling and she wasn’t quite sure how to cope with it.

 

“I’m very lucky,” Beryl said in a quietly joyous tone.  “Mistress is so kind to me.” She wasn’t totally sure how true any of it was, much as she couldn’t deny a powerful affection and attraction towards Analisse that pulled on her thoughts like an undertow.  Still, it seemed logical that a normal Zealian girl would jump at any chance to have someone as important as Analisse paying attention to her.

 

“I’d have thought Ana’d be a stickler,” Vanis chuckled.  Well, uhh, I know this is kind of rude of me to do this… y’know, after Ana’s already– but I thought that… I knew you were new and had no friends and I feel like I should have reached out to you sooner, y’know?  I was just a bit embarrassed because of how the prank went, and...” Vanis cleared his throat a little, and looked Beryl in the eyes. “Friends?”

 

Beryl gave him a polite smile.  “Only if you can help me with my literature classes.”

 

“Oh, sure!” Vanis jumped at the invitation.  “With as talented as you are at Sorcery I had you figured as a real overachiever, actually.”

 

“Sorcery is so easy,” Beryl sighed.  “But I can’t figure out all this stuff about symbolism and thematic… ugh.” She looked over at the wrinkled sheet of notes next to her food and scowled.  Vanis scooted over and took a look, giving her some small hints and notes that were actually very helpful. Several of them actually made her feel stupid but Vanis was surprisingly nice when he was trying to ingratiate himself with her so he didn’t needle her over them.

 

“Vanis… can I ask why you’re so scared of Mistress?” Beryl asked during a lull in the conversation.

 

“I’m not…  _ scared _ of her,” Vanis muttered, looking over his shoulder for Analisse.

 

“I won’t say anything bad to her.  I just don’t know a lot about her and she’s… kind of private.” Beryl tried to smile encouragingly.

 

Vanis sighed, looking over at Beryl with an uncomfortable expression on his face.  “Okay, well, you know the whole thing with the Empress’ upcoming retirement and supposedly her son doesn’t want to succeed?”

 

“...Yes,” she lied.

 

“Well, one of Ana’s rivals disappeared last year, and my family were contractors for them.  We want the Trecoryas to know there’s no bad blood, but… Well, we can’t really accuse them of assassinating…”  Vanis’ face went a little pale for a second and he exhaled nervously. “And… they probably didn’t do it anyway…  We don’t think that, and even if we did it wouldn’t…” Vanis went silent suddenly and started muttering to himself.

 

“It’s okay.  I won’t say anything,” Beryl patted him on the arm but he barely seemed to notice.

 

“I just wanna fucking graduate,” Vanis grumbled and then looked over at her with a sigh.  “Sorry. I’m not cut out for this political stuff. My parents sent me to see if you would put in a good word with Ana for us or even just... and I’m… Ugh.”

 

Beryl wasn’t quite sure what to make of Vanis’ tirade.  It was both shocking that he was probably just as anxious and stressed out as she was, and also kind of endearing.  She stood up and scooted over to put an arm around him.

 

“Well aren’t you two cute,” A new voice came from directly behind Beryl and she turned around to look at the woman standing behind the two of them.  Beryl had seen her around the Academy once or twice, she was about Vanis’ age but certainly didn’t seem to spend as much time in the complex as he did.

 

“Hey Kirlin,” Vanis murmured unenthusiastically.

 

“You must be the plaything Ana’s told me so much about,” Kirlin said, completely ignoring Vanis and sitting down next to Beryl to stare intensely at her.

 

“Nice… to meet you?” Beryl offered, retaking her seat.  She wasn’t sure who this was or how much Analisse actually had told her.  She doubted that her Mistress actually had told this stranger much of anything, it was probably a bluff and she intended not to spill a single detail to her.

 

“I guess she hasn’t filled you in about me.  I’m her cousin, Kirlin,” she explained, and then looked over at Vanis.  “Ranis, you can go. I need to have a chat with Beryl,”

 

“Not Ranis,” Vanis mumbled indignantly as he picked up his dishes and left the two of them alone.

 

“Lady Trecorya’s cousin…? Does that mean you’re the Empress’–”

 

“No.  Other side of the family,” Kirlin answered with a practiced dismissal.  There was a moment of awkward silence as Kirlin watched Vanis’ retreating form and then for her to do a quick scan of the surroundings.

 

“Um, Ma’am?” Beryl asked.

 

“No need to be coy with me, I’m in the loop about your particular…  _ condition _ .”  She looked back over at Beryl with that same sort of triumphant grin that Analisse had when she was talking about the Crest.

 

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Beryl looked away from Kirlin.  She wasn’t sure if Kirlin was bluffing and trying to drag some other information out of her.  Maybe she wasn’t even Analisse’s cousin. Although, that part seemed reasonable given Vanis’ reaction to her.

 

Kirlin leaned in, putting her hand on Beryl’s wrist to get her attention.  “I know you’re from Kaaz. I know you bear the Crest,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.  She straightened back up again afterwards, looking perfectly normal.

 

“Oh,” Beryl murmured, blushing.  “I didn’t know she–”

 

“Ana’s a busy bee and I’m pretty sure she’s keeping details need-to-know.  I’m the one who has a better understanding of the significance of… you. Ana’s part of the plan is political, mine’s Sorcerous.”  She smiled innocently as she spoke, stealing some of the steamed vegetables off of Beryl’s plate without asking. Beryl wasn’t sure what to make of that comment, she’d heard Mistress make vague references to “plans” and that Beryl was going to have some role in them but she’d never given specifics.

 

“Anyway, let’s go somewhere more private.”  She stood, looking down at Beryl expectantly but not with the same sort of demanding impatience that Analisse had.  Beryl put her plates away and joined Kirlin who led her straight back to the Trecorya office, opening it in the same way that Analisse had and ushering her inside.

 

“So,” Kirlin said cheerfully, locking the door behind them.  “Ana tells me you can make a vacuum bubble?”

 

“I suppose.  I knew a little about controlling air currents and it just sort of… made sense,” Beryl admitted, puzzling through how she’d done it.  It only made a sort of half-sense even to her, it was like trying to explain how to keep your balance while standing on one leg.

 

“Make one for me now, then.  I want to see how you do it, and we can use the privacy,” Kirlin demanded, and Beryl finally saw a bit of the relation to Analisse in the other woman.

 

“I, uhh…” Beryl paused, feeling at her connection to the Moon through the Crest.  No, it wouldn’t quite work properly, not like this. “I can’t right now.”

 

“What does that mean?” Kirlin scowled a little at that, like Beryl was lying to her.

 

“The Moon isn’t in the right place, it’s different in the middle of the day.  I can try, but…” Beryl rubbed her chin a little, trying to puzzle out how she’d replicate that Sorcery at this time of day.  “Maybe if I could use a Glyph?”

 

“You’re saying the time of day affects what Sorceries you can do?” Kirlin asked, sounding fascinated now.  Before Beryl could answer though, she raised a finger and then moved off to grab a thin slab of slate and chalk for Beryl.  “Go ahead. And explain what you meant.”

 

“It’s the Moon’s position and phase,” Beryl explained, looking up and at an angle behind him, towards where the crescent moon was currently hidden by the sun’s brightness.  She could always tell where the Moon was, just by feeling. She paused for a second to think through what she needed, and started tracing a few lines and expressions onto the slate to form the Glyph she needed.  “During the day the energy is, uhhh… slower?” she tried to explain.

 

“Slower? You mean that you can’t pull as much energy for your Sorceries?” Kirlin asked, watching Beryl draw her glyph intently.

 

“No… well, yes, but, there’s so much energy I can’t even begin to harness it all anyway.  It’s more like… if the energy was music, it’s a flute during the night, and drums during the day?” she smiled nervously, convinced that she sounded crazy.  She decided to distract herself by focusing more seriously on the Glyph. It wasn’t a complicated one, it more acted as a way for her to convert power, but she’d still never drawn one like this before.

 

“Fascinating… the frequency differs…” Kirlin murmured to herself, pulling a small notebook out of her bag and scribbling some notes down.  “This will be more complex than I thought.”

 

Beryl didn’t answer, and instead finished up her Glyph and then placed her finger in the middle of it to channel the Moon’s power into the vacuum bubble Sorcery.  She…  _ felt _ the air around her shift, and the bubble formed, muting out even the tiniest bit of sound that was buzzing through the walls from the rest of the Academy.

 

“Amazing,” Kirlin gasped softly, looking around her.  A moment later, she evocated herself and a purple shimmer appeared around her.  “An actual vacuum bubble with so simple a Glyph. It should be impossible. It doesn’t make sense.”

 

“Sorry,” Beryl murmured, blushing.

 

“No, this helps,” Kirlin replied, still writing furiously in her notebook even as she paced the room to get closer to the edges of the bubble that Beryl had formed.  “Information regarding the Crest and how its Sorcery differs from ours is so scant. The Imperial family destroys all the information they can. I’ve been working with bits and pieces of contraband, but with you, I can just write the material anew.”  She looked up at Beryl and smiled. “Ana told me you were born a boy? That the Crest made you look like this?”

 

“I think so,” Beryl admitted with a bit of a blush.  “That’s what the stories say is supposed to happen, and thats what happened.”

 

“Well, it could be that this is just your body’s natural hormonal balance; Such things happen sometimes.  I suppose that would be quite the coincidence, though. I wonder what it means…” Kirlin watched Beryl thoughtfully for several moments, then finally nodded and went to the big desk in the middle of the office to start looking around.  “Ana said she’d leave me… aha!” She pulled out a small box and walked over to Beryl. “Roll up the sleeve of your dress.”

 

Beryl followed her instructions with some trepidation, but when Kirlin withdrew an empty syringe from the case, it was all she could do not to shriek.

 

“No! No, no no, no,” Beryl wailed, backing up until she was pressed up against the bookcase, shivering in terror at the sight of the needle.  The Sorcery she was holding onto warbled for a moment as she removed her finger from the Glyph but it sorted itself out and stayed active.

 

“...Really?” Kirlin giggled.  “You’re scared of needles?”

 

“No… no…” Beryl whined, trembling, eyes fixated upon the thin, pointed piece of metal that wanted to stab her and drain away all of her fluids and leave her a dry dessicated husk that would—

 

“Yeesh,” Kirlin put the syringe away and placed the box on the table.  Beryl’s trembling stopped almost immediately, and she took in a gasp of air, panting softly and realizing that she’d barely been breathing.

 

“Sorry, Ma’am, I can’t help it.” Beryl looked away, embarrassed and still a little scared.  Her eyes flickered to the box where she knew the needle was, and her heart thumped in her chest so hard it felt like she’d burst.  It was beyond discomfort, it was painful.

 

“No problem, I’m not as good as Ana is at this stuff but I can help you out,” Kirlin walked over to Beryl’s still-trembling form and placed her hands on Beryl’s neck just below her ears.  “Just relax,” she trilled.

 

Beryl suddenly felt her fear start to melt away like it has never been there in the first place.  It drained out of her and left her with a sort of strange, empty numbness instead. “Wha…?” she stared at Kirlin, dumbfounded as the horrid feeling in her chest slowly dissipated

 

“Alright, I’m gonna take a little of your blood, that sound okay, Beryl?” she asked with a honeyed voice, looking at Beryl like she was an infant.

 

“Umm… yes?” Beryl thought about it.  She was scared of needles, wasn’t she? It didn’t  _ seem _ like she was as the moment but she did  _ remember _ being scared of them.  Even when Kirlin went over and pulled the syringe back out of the box, her heartbeat was perfectly calm, and she held out her arm obediently like she’d been doing this her whole life.  There was a slight pinch as she inserted the thin needle into a vein and allowed the little hollow glass part to fill up with her blood. Kirlin placed a little piece of cloth over the vein where she’d poked her and withdrew the needle slowly, humming to herself.  She fiddled with the syringe until the needle and the glass vial came apart and stashed the two parts separately inside the box it had initially come out of. Beryl marvelled at how easy it had been.

 

“How did you…” she asked, staring at Kirlin bewilderedly as she pulled her notebook back out and started taking more notes.

 

“How did I what?” she asked.

 

“Did you… cure my phobia?”

 

Kirlin snorted at that one, and closed her book again.  “Wow, Ana wasn’t kidding about you being naive. No, you’re not ‘cured,’ what I did is temporary.  Fear is just a chemical reaction in your brain, sweetie. I just suppressed that reaction for a bit.  You might feel a little weird for an hour or so until the Evocation wears off but that’s normal.”

 

“Okay,” Beryl nodded, noting that she did still feel somewhat numb and unrestricted.  She thought about telling the whole Academy about her Crest, and the idea had a strange sort of emotional appeal to it even as she understood that she couldn’t.

 

“So, tell me about the teleportation Sorcery you used.  The vacuum bubble is something that’s doable even if it’s very difficult for normal practitioners, but teleportation is a far-off crackpot of a theory as far as most academics are concerned.” Kirlin flipped a page and looked up at Beryl expectantly.

 

“It’s not… I did it.  I know how,” Beryl answered earnestly.

 

“Yes, sweetie, I believe you.  Tell me about the details,” Kirlin smiled at her with the look of a patient mother.

 

“Oh.  Well, that’s one that doesn’t rely on the Moon’s phase.  The main idea is you sort of… make two different places resonate together, and they become the same place for a second, and then…” She stopped as she saw the look on Kirlin’s face.  “Maybe I should write it down…”

 

“That might be better,” Kirlin smiled patronizingly, and went over to the desk to pull out some blank sheets of paper and a pen.  Beryl spent the next two hours trying to explain how the Sorcery worked. Perhaps more accurately, she spent the majority of that time explaining her notations, explaining why she used the numbers she did, and how she came up with her formatting.  Most of the time she had to pause and wonder how  _ did _ she come up with the numbers she did.  Most of them just made sense to her. Kirlin was extremely detailed and thorough and by the end of it, Beryl was drooping in her chair, exhausted.

 

“I guess that will have to do for now,” Kirlin said with a sigh when she saw Beryl yawning.  She continued to scribble down things in her notebook for a few moments before she shut it with a snap and then gathered up all the notes Beryl herself had made including the granite slab she’d made her Glyph on.  Beryl noticed that Kirlin actually placed the book down upon the table and locked it shut with an evocation on the latch similar to the one on the door before she stashed it away in her bag. “Try to think about this, we’ll be resuming this conversation later.”  She stood up and checked the clock, clicking her tongue when she saw it was late afternoon already.

 

“Are we going to be making another teleportation Glyph?” Beryl asked.

 

Kirlin gave Beryl a very displeased look for a moment before she hrmph’d softly.  “Something like that. Ana doesn’t want to worry you with the details. Plus, you can’t accidentally blab a detail you don’t know.”  With that, she walked over to the door and opened it, then looked back over her shoulder at Beryl impatiently. “I need to lock the door behind you.”

 

“Oh, right…” Beryl blushed a little and scampered out, letting Kirlin lock the door as she’d said.  There was an awkward pause, and then Kirlin reached over and put her arm around Beryl’s shoulders to give her a brief hug.

 

“You’ll be great,” she murmured softly, not sounding convinced herself, and then walked away.  Out of the entire exchange, that embrace had been by far the most disconcerting and Beryl wondered why it had happened the way it did.  As Kirlin left, the memory of her barely-started literature assignment burned in her memory and she sighed as she knew there was no way she’d get much more done today.  She decided to simply head… “home,” to her little room in the Trecorya estate.

 

As Beryl walked through the city, she thought of Analisse.  As always, thinking of her Mistress both made her heart ache at her absence but also filled her with a sort of euphoria.  It had only been several days, but her Mistress was becoming more and more of an obsession that dominated Beryl’s thoughts.

 

_ “I’m not as good as Ana is at this stuff...”  _ The thought came to her.  Kirlin had said that, just before she’d tampered with Beryl’s emotions.  Could Mistress be doing that to her? Could that explain why she was feeling the way she was?  She didn’t want to believe it. Her feelings for Analisse couldn’t just be completely manufactured.  It just didn’t make any sense. The very first time she’d met Mistress, Beryl had thought she was captivating, even if she was somewhat terrifying.  Kirlin had touched her to perform that Sorcery, she’d said it was chemical. That made sense, an Evocation like that probably  _ would _ require contact.  So, it didn’t track that her feelings for Analisse were completely manufactured.  Mistress…  _ had  _ obviously touched her afterwards, and several times, subsequently, but…

 

Beryl shook her head.  No. Even if it were possible, Mistress wouldn’t do that to her.  She didn’t  _ need _ to do that to her.  Why control her mind and then leave room for Beryl to doubt it? Why bother controlling her like that at all? She was completely at Mistress’ mercy anyway.

 

“Excuse me, can we help you, Miss?” one of the soldiers in the antechamber to the Trecorya estate stopped her.  She paused and blinked at them, confused.

 

“I live here? I’m Lady Trecorya’s… umm…”  She trailed off, remembering what it was Mistress had told her but not wanting to say it.  She reasoned that maybe they would know what she meant.

 

“Her what?” the soldier accosting her scowled at her, crushing her hopes.

 

“Her slutty submissive little bitch...” Beryl mumbled, reciting the phrase exactly as Mistress had instructed her to.  The soldier who’d questioned her frowned like it was a joke.

 

“Oh, right, we got briefed on this, remember?” one of his companions spoke up with a bit of a smirk on her face.  “She’s Lady Analisse’s, look at the earrings and the choker.”

 

The soldier accosting her looked over at his companion, then back at Beryl.  “Oh, that wasn’t a joke?”

 

“No, they don’t give us prank briefings, moron,” the female soldier sighed, and then gestured to Beryl.  “Come on inside, Miss. Sorry for the inconvenience.” The man stopping Beryl stepped aside and opened the door for her.  She ducked inside, blushing furiously.

 

She tracked down one of the servants and asked them if ‘Lady Trecorya’ was around.  She was told that she was probably in her quarters, and Beryl headed there with some trepidation.  She knew that the moment she saw Analisse, she’d end up asking her if she was controlling her mind.  She didn’t want to ask, but she also wasn’t really supposed to be wandering around the manor on her own.  She moved through the hallways to her room, placed her hand upon the handle, and paused. She could do this.  If it wasn’t true, if Mistress wasn’t doing anything to her mind, it wouldn’t matter, would it? It would just be a question about Sorcery, and that was a perfectly normal thing for her to ask, right?

 

Her room was empty and quiet, and the adjoining door leading to Analisse’s was cracked open. Mistress had made it clear that she wanted the door left open unless she closed it herself.  There was a soft thrumming noise coming from inside and a narrow wedge of light spilled into the darkness of Beryl’s room. She softly moved through her room into Mistress’, and saw her holding a brooch in one hand, tendrils of Sorcerous power connecting to it from the fingertips of her other hand.  Beryl watched for a few moments, and saw a trickle of blood flowing down her palm from the hand that held the brooch. Beryl watched quietly as Analisse evocated, standing off to the side so as not to interrupt. She continued for several moments, and finally snarled at the brooch, her Sorcery flickering out.  She spun and tossed the brooch onto a nearby couch with a grunt of exasperation. A moment later, she noticed Beryl.

 

“Ah, precious.  Be a good girl and bring me that medical kit.” she spoke quietly, pointing to a spot on the shelf and then stalking over to her desk, sitting down and holding the cut on her palm that was the source of the bleeding.

 

Beryl did as she asked, easily finding the kit and setting it down in front of her Mistress.  “Was I interrupting, Mistress?” she asked.

 

“No, I’m working on something and it’s proving very difficult to get it just right.” Analisse answered tiredly and wrapped a bit of gauze around her hand.  When she finished, she pressed two fingers to the cut and there was a soft glow as she evocated to help close up the wound. “It’s nothing you need to worry about,” her eyes flickered to Beryl’s.  “And nothing you need tell others about, either, of course.”

 

“Even Kirlin, Mistress?” Beryl asked quietly, shrinking away from her gaze.

 

“There’s nothing you can tell Kirlin about what I’m doing that she doesn’t already know.  I’m guessing that she had a chat with you today?” she asked, sounding a little annoyed.

 

“Yes, Mistress.  I… cooperated with her, I hope that—”

 

“No, that’s fine.  I wanted Kirlin to wait a few more days before she started to squeeze you for information but I guess she couldn’t help herself.  I’ll have some words with her about boundaries but it’s not your fault.” Analisse packed the gauze away in the kit and closed it up before handing it back to Beryl with the unspoken command to put it back where she’d found it.  Beryl took it over to the other side of the room, and paused as she placed it on the shelf with a quiet scuff of tin on wood. The question burned at her, and she turned around slowly.

 

“Mistress?” Beryl asked, conflict raging within her.

 

“Hmm?” Analisse gave a disinterested acknowledgement.

 

“Are you… controlling my emotions with Sorcery?”

 

“The term you’re looking for is ‘influencing’, precious.” she replied, sounding like she’d just answered a question about theory rather than one about Beryl’s autonomy.

 

“So… are you?” she asked with a frown.

 

“What?” Analisse finally looked up at her.

 

“Are you influencing my emotions?”

 

“Of course I am,” she scoffed.  “Everything influences a person’s emotions.  Eating food, seeing a pretty flower, being cold.  I have done several things to you to encourage you to trust me and to make you feel safe around me.”

 

“Including… using Sorcery?” she pressed.

 

“Of course I am,” she repeated, her brow furrowing in confusion.  “What is this about, precious?”

 

“I’ve… I feel like I love you and that I can’t live without you, Mistress, and I don’t understand… It doesn’t feel normal to me.” Beryl fidgeted, looking down at her hands.  She knew she’d feel foolish bringing this up, she knew she’d regret it. She cursed her own stupidity and her inability to just leave well enough alone.

 

“The whole  _ point _ of Sorcery is to redefine what is both possible and normal, Beryl.” Analisse heaved an annoyed sighed and rolled her eyes.  “I suppose this is a cultural conflict that I should have anticipated. Do your feelings right now bother you?”

 

“Sort of… it’s confusing.” she admitted.

 

Analisse rose to her feet and walked over to Beryl.  She placed her hand on her cheek, and Beryl looked up into her eyes.  “Just relax a bit. Mistress wants you to feel better, gemstone,” she whispered soothingly.  Beryl watched her Mistress as she started to glow with Sorcerous power, wondering why she was smiling now in contrast to her earlier annoyance.  She suddenly felt a sort of a cold shock fall upon her mind, soothing and smothering her thoughts and feelings with a sort of pleasant numbness. She opened her mouth to protest, but she couldn’t think straight enough to form words.

 

“I’m using a bit of a heavier touch this time, precious.  Don’t try to think. Trust that Mistress knows what you need.” Analisse’s smile seemed to grow a little as she turned Beryl’s mind to mush, drowning out everything other than her.  Beryl felt her love for her Mistress blossom within her. She owed Mistress her life. Mistress cared for her, Mistress accepted her, Mistress needed her. Mistress played with her…

 

Beryl moaned softly, her body flushing with passion and arousal.  Mistress was so pretty… and she made Beryl feel so good. Her cock throbbed with need.  So lucky. She was such a lucky girl.

 

“Missstresssss!” Beryl wailed, falling down to her knees and looking up at Analisse with a reverence that felt so incredibly right.  She needed to be on her knees, she belonged there.

 

Analisse smiled down at her, running her fingers gently through Beryl’s hair.  “How do you feel now, precious?”

 

“Gooooood…” Beryl mumbled, nuzzling her face up against Analisse’s leg.  She had never felt so at peace and so loved. She could only vaguely even recall that she had been feeling any trepidation at all and certainly didn’t fully understand what it was about anymore.

 

“That’s a good girl.  Now, come over here and show your Mistress how appreciative you are,”  Analisse gently gripped Beryl by the hair and backtracked several steps to her chair, forcing Beryl to crawl along with her.  She sat down and hitched her dress up, exposing her panties to Beryl’s hungry gaze.

 

Beryl mewled needily, crawling forward between her Mistress’ legs and pressing her face into her pantied crotch.  She lapped at the impeding silk and whined, flailing about a little bit, knowing what she wanted but not sure how to proceed.

 

“Aww, are you a little confused, precious?” Analisse asked, gigging softly.  Beryl looked up at her Mistress and pouted. Beryl knew what to do, right? Beryl could take panties off... somehow.  She’d done it before. “Well fortunately that part is temporary. Don’t worry, Mistress will give you a hand.” Analisse reached down and hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her panties so that she could slide them off.  Beryl wasted almost no time, the moment the sight and scent of her Mistress was clear to her, she rushed forward, tongue eagerly lapping at Analisse’s moist slit.

 

“Mmm…” Analisse moaned softly as Beryl’s pink tongue flickered across her sex.  Her eagerness was so unbearable and compulsory that she wasted no time and pushed her face forward, tongue trying to wriggle inside her Mistress’ pussy.  “Tsk, tsk,” Analisse clicked her tongue softly and nudged Beryl’s head backwards a bit. “Slow and steady, precious, remember?”

 

Beryl mumbled an apology, the words turning into a jumble in her mind and coming out as a slur of noises as she remembered how her Mistress had instructed her previously.  She moved her tongue in slow circles just below her clitoral hood, keeping her pace as steady as she was able to.

 

“Fuck, what a shit day,” Analisse sighed happily, languidly moving her leg around Beryl’s waist to gently trap her.  “I’d almost forgotten how nice it was to have a submissive.” Beryl applied some gentle suction to her Mistress’ clit, coaxing it to come out as she continued her rhythmic licking.  Analisse moaned softly, her entire body relaxing a little. An additional wetness found its way onto Beryl’s tongue and she shivered in ecstasy herself. She was making Mistress feel nice! What a lucky girl she was.

 

Beryl’s own stiff cock rubbed against the insides of her panties and the mild friction felt unbearably intense.  She squirmed a little, trying to alleviate the friction but only succeeded in rubbing harder. It was so good, so much, she was so overjoyed to be allowed to serve her Mistress.  She moaned into Mistress’ pussy as she came, her cock spurting into the front of her panties. Her balance shifted, and she wobbled, only not being knocked over by the intensity of her orgasm by virtue of being on all fours.

 

“Precious.  Focus.” Analisse grabbed Beryl by her hair and gave a small warning tug.  “Your attention belongs on me.” Beryl resumed her tempo, tongue swirling the way Mistress had taught her.  Analisse’s grip in Beryl’s hair tightened immediately as her own passion rose in spite of Beryl’s compliance with her command.

 

“Mmm… what a good girl.  Even if you’re creaming yourself without permission like a desperate slut.”  Analisse laughed a little at her own comment but then immediately her hips quivered, leg around Beryl’s waist pulling her in tighter.  “Keep going…!” she hissed softly, and Beryl flicked her tongue gently across her Mistress’ clit. Analisse let out a stifled scream as she bit down on her knuckle and thrust her hips forward, smothering Beryl and shoving her pussy hard against her face.

 

Beryl whined softly as Analisse rode out her orgasm and suffocated Beryl at the same time, roughly keeping her face in place and clenching down on her head with her thighs.

 

“Sore-sea…” Analisse murmured woozily as she released Beryl’s head and slumped back in her chair a bit.  Beryl had no idea what her Mistress had actually just said, she was too busy sucking in oxygen to alleviate her dizziness.  When her head stopped spinning she mewled softly and nuzzled into her Mistress’ thighs, feeling aglow with contentment and affection.  It was such a privilege to be here, on her knees between Mistress legs!

 

“Still horny,” Analisse murmured softly, her tone somewhere between resigned and annoyed.  Beryl stayed still, blissfully unaware of anything other than the warmth of Mistress’ thighs on her cheek.  Nothing happened for several moments, and finally Analisse sighed and stood up, the movement pushing Beryl out of her perch and onto her butt.  “Get on the bed, precious,” she said as she stepped around her and briskly walked towards her closet.

 

Beryl sat there confused for several moments before she crawled over to the bed and climbed up with a bit of difficulty.  She sat on her haunches, hands in her lap, and waited for Mistress to return. Analisse reappeared from the depths of her massive closet with a device that looked to Beryl like a tangled mess of thin leather straps in her hands.  She paused there for a moment, then glowed with Sorcery. All at once, several dozen little snaps that held her dress together came undone and fell to the floor in a pile of silk and cloth, leaving her standing there wearing only her bra.  Beryl stared, transfixed by her Mistress’ beauty and grace.

 

Analisse giggled at her expression for a moment, and then stepped into the mass of leather straps, pulling them up to her hips.  She adjusted and twisted the straps around until they resembled a pair of underwear that was holding a metal ring over her crotch.  “Get down on knees and elbows, precious, I’m going to fuck you.”

 

“Fuck… Me?” Beryl murmured softly to herself in confusion, but her body obeyed Mistress’ command mostly without thinking.  She heard Analisse moving around a bit, opening a drawer, fiddling with her weird straps again, and then finally climbing onto the bed with Beryl.

 

“This might sting a little,”Analisse said offhandedly as she slipped a pair of lubricated fingers into Beryl’s ass.

 

“Wuh?” Beryl looked over her shoulder, shivering a bit at the pleasant tingling going up her spine from her Mistress’ attention.  Fitted into the metal ring affixed to Analisse’s harness was an eight inch long and rather thick metal cock, glistening with the same lubricant.  “M-Mistress, I don’t think tha—” Analisse’s other hand touched Beryl on the back of the neck, and the little spike of nervousness she was feeling instantly melted away into nothing.  Her needy cunt could easily take that cock, because it was what Mistress wanted. A little pain or discomfort was nothing. Beryl whined softly and wiggled her hips for her Mistress, eager to be split open.

 

The cold metal pressed against her pucker and didn’t stop.  Analisse pressed forward insistently, hesitating only for a second as Beryl’s ass resisted physically as much as it was able.  One push, two, three. Beryl cried out in pain, devotion, and exultation as her cunt was spread to its widest point to permit Mistress’ cock to slide in past the tip.  The pain was nothing, serving her Mistress’ whims was everything.

 

“There we go.  I really shouldn’t doubt myself,” Analisse chuckled to herself and steadily kept pushing until her hips pressed up against Beryl’s ass.  Beryl felt a new sting of pain and curiously looked over at her hand. There was a tiny trickle of blood where she’d clenched her fist so hard her nails had cut into her palm a little.  That was strange, why had that happened?

 

Analisse’s weight pressed down upon her subtly and her hands found Beryl’s shoulders with one of them still slightly damp with lube.  She let out a shaky breath and a soft moan as she started to slowly and deliberately grind her crotch and the cock attached to it into Beryl’s ass.

 

“Do you like my big fat cock you little slut?” Analisse hissed into Beryl’s ear as her thrusting motions started to take on a bit more form.  Beryl wanted to answer her Mistress’ question like a good girl, but when she tried to think clearly enough to form words, none came. She thought of how pretty her Mistress was, the thick cock that was fucking her, the mix of sensation, pain, and pleasure coursing through her.  A series of soft grunts came out of her mouth, forced out of her by the accelerating impacts of Analisse’s cock bottoming out. Analisse giggled softly when she noticed that Beryl wasn’t in a state to respond and just focused a little harder on fucking her.

 

Analisse threw her weight into her thrusts, fucking Beryl with a steady percussion that drew tiny yelps out of her and scooted her ever so slowly across the bed.  Her body was on fire with sensation that she barely understood as being pain or pleasure, but her addled mind interpreted it as a ritual through which she was worshipping her Mistress.  She had no idea if she was constantly orgasming or if she was wracked in pain, her mind was focused on every subtle shift of her Mistress body, every tiny gasp of pleasure coming from her.

 

Beryl started to rock her body against Analisse, giving her thrusts more power to slam into her cunt.  Analisse let out a soft growl as she noticed and dug her nails into Beryl’s shoulder. She threw her head back a little, panting and gasping softly as she took her pleasure with Beryl’s body.  Analisse shoved her cock forward with a loud moan, her weight shifting forward and knocking Beryl down flat onto the bed. One of her hands left Beryl’s shoulders and she could tell Analisse was playing with her clit even as she continued to grind and twist on the cock lodged in her ass.

 

“Fuck… ugh.” Analisse muttered almost angrily, and then cried out with a sort of high pitched yelp as she came.  Slowly, her weight collapsed down on top of Beryl and her breathing hit a steady, peaceful rhythm. “You’re such a good girl,” Analisse whispered in Beryl’s ear, and planted a soft kiss on her neck.  They laid there for several minutes before Analisse finally rolled off of Beryl, extracting her cock and leaving Beryl feeling very thoroughly reamed.

 

Beryl tried to rise up a little but she didn’t get to her feet before she realized that Analisse trying to crawl under the covers  but Beryl’s weight on them was preventing her. Her Mistress glanced up at her for a moment, and raised an eyebrow. “Come on, Precious, get under here.  I have an early morning.”

 

Beryl nodded wordlessly and crawled over to join Analisse under her blanket.  A moment later, Analisse touched a little Glyph embedded in the wall above her headboard and the lights all went out.  She exhaled contentedly and put her arm around Beryl, hand resting on the crest, fingers idly tracing the outline of it.  Beryl blinked slowly as her mind seemed floated back down to the ground and cleared up a bit. Her memory of the last little while didn’t go anywhere, but a sort of clarity passed over it as the pleasant fog of Analisse’s Sorcery cleared.  She’d been so anxious about the idea that Mistress was tampering with her emotions, and now she knew it was true. She remembered that moment of feeling betrayed, but… there was no  _ impact _ to the memory.  She remembered being upset, but wasn’t upset now, and couldn’t understand why she should be.  She loved Mistress, and the feelings were so real, so potent, they filled her with such joy. Why should it matter where they came from?  She mewled happily and curled up next to Mistress, falling asleep without a care in the world.

 


	3. The Black Dream

A sliver of sunlight crept across Beryl’s eyelid, and she stirred.  A few moments later, she heard someone moving around in the room. “Sorry to disturb you, Miss.  Are you going to be waking up anytime soon? I need to change the sheets.”

 

Beryl clutched the blanket to her chest and sat up, concealing her various physical irregularities from the servant.  He was puttering around, gathering up the laundry and doing a bit of dusting and tidying. “I’ll get out of your way but I’d like to get changed,” she murmured softly.

 

The servant looked over at her, confused for a moment.  “No need for modesty around me, Miss, but if you insist then I’ll be just outside.  Knock on the door when you’re done?” Beryl nodded, and he left her alone. With the threat of detection passed, Beryl got up and walked over to her own room to get dressed.  She’d slept in Mistress’ bed but she was gone already, she usually left early in the morning before Beryl was up. She went into her closet to search for an outfit for the day, looking for something feminine but not overly elaborate and burdensome; she wanted to go for a walk today.  She ended up picking one of her favorite pale blue dresses. She got halfway to her makeup table when she remembered the servant who was probably still waiting outside the door to Analisse’s room. She let him back in, nodded politely to him, and then retreated to her own room. She sat at her makeup station, staring at the elaborate instruments ahead of her, and let out a determined breath.  Mistress and the occasional household servant had been assisting her with her makeup most days. Lessons about makeup, manners, and presentation had been swamping her far worse than her most difficult subjects at the academy. Today, she had no classes or assignments to work on. She was alone at home, and had no excuse to not practice. Besides, Mistress wanted her to practice, and that was  _ very  _ important. The thought of disappointing Mistress… well, it didn't fill her with dread and anxiety, not anymore.  It was simply… unthinkable.

 

She spent over an hour applying, removing, reapplying, removing, changing palettes, and reapplying before she sat back with a small huff of accomplishment and frustration.  She hated it. It didn’t look anything like how Mistress did hers, and she was certain that everybody would know that she’d just been learning for a few weeks. Her hand twitched, reaching for the damp cloth on the makeup table, but she stopped herself.  No, this would have to do. Nobody would even look too closely, she was going for a walk, not to a party.

 

She put her things away and rose up to her feet, a tiny bit eager to be out of the stuffy manor and away from the mirror that she’d been toiling at.  She crept her way through the opulent halls of the Trecorya estate almost like she was trying to steal something. Being around serving staff made her feel awkward, and Lady Yavimay scared the daylights out of her.  Mistress also supposedly had both a younger sister and older brother, though Beryl didn’t see them much. The soldiers at the front door politely ignored her, stepping aside and letting her pass. All four shifts knew her now, and they’d all had their chances to chuckle and snicker at her relationship with Mistress. Now, the girl wearing Analisse’s collar was just routine for them.  They all knew they could get her to say embarrassing things by asking the right questions, but it had been a few days since they’d done so.

 

Beryl escaped out into the city without much accostation and picked a direction that she knew wouldn’t run near the academy or somewhere one of the members of the household would be.  She stayed within the confines of the city, walking up and down the various pathways, through small little parks and common areas. She dared not try to wander outside the city limits, people watched most of the ways outside the city, she’d only slipped in undetected in the first place by virtue of being invisible.

 

She felt the moon wandering across the sky, and shivered with a feeling of dissonance that always came as it moved next to the sun sometime around noon.  She stopped to get lunch at the first place she saw, which ended up being a place serving sandwiches and soup. By the time she found her way back to the Trecorya manor, it was already late afternoon.  The guards had changed shift, but the ones there now didn’t tease her either and she went inside without any more than a polite nod. She headed towards her room without paying much attention to her surroundings.

 

“Beryl, was it?”  She froze mid-step as Yavimay’s voice came from the side.

 

“Lady Yavimay,” Beryl reacted as quickly as she could, correcting her posture and then dipping down into a curtsy.  “A pleasure to see you.”

 

“I see Analisse has been hard at work on you,” she said, her voice tinged with amusement and derision.  She watched Beryl’s curtsy closely, but she’d practiced enough that it was flawless.

 

“I’m grateful for Mistress’ guidance,” she intoned demurely.  She held her position, poised precariously in her curtsy, eyes downcast, and before long became  _ very _ aware of how Yavimay was stalling silently.

 

“The family is going to a party next week.  You should come as Analisse’s guest” Yavimay finally said.

 

“I’d be delighted, Lady Yavimay,” Beryl replied instinctively but as soon as she said it, her stomach twisted itself into a knot.  She couldn’t just  _ refuse _ Yavimay’s invitation, but she also wasn’t sure what it meant.  Did Mistress know this would happen? Did she expect it? Was it a total disaster?  The thoughts whirled around in her mind for a moment then they slipped away, unable to spiral her into a panic.  Mistress would handle it. Mistress handled these things.

 

“Good.  We’ll see you then,” Yavimay replied, and then Beryl heard the soft rattling noise of her chair wheeling away into the depths of the manor.  Overwhelmed with a need to see Mistress, Beryl straightened up and raced back to her room. She sat there at her desk waiting for Mistress, hands on her lap.  She didn’t feel upset, but the rest of her thoughts were gone. The only thing she wanted, or had any drive to do, was wait for Mistress. Eventually, she heard the door to Mistress’ room open, and she bolted up onto her feet.  When she reached their adjoining door, she blinked in confusion before she even opened it. It wasn’t Mistress’ voice coming from her room.

  
  


“Fuck.   _ Shit.  _ Her…  _ fucking  _ Shadow...”  Beryl heard Kirlin muttering to herself, and heard frenzied pacing from within Analisse’s room.  “Where, where, where…  _ ugh! _ ”

 

“Miss Kirlin?” Beryl asked, stepping inside the room.  Kirlin’s normally simplistic yet perfectly neat hair was disheveled.  Her head snapped towards Beryl and she had a sort of a wild frenzy in her eyes.  Her hands were forming fists and fidgeting nonstop at her sides, and she had… a  _ huge _ bulge in her dress.

 

“Beryllll,” Kirlin whined softly, her head looking around the room over and over as though another look would reveal something new.  “Where’s Ana? I really… I fucked up I need…  _ fuck _ .”  Kirlin bit her lip and reached down, adjusting the bulge her in dress.  Whatever it was was straining against the fabric and it looked extremely uncomfortable.

 

“I’m not sure where Mistress is.  Can I help?” Beryl asked, walking over to Kirlin.  She gently put a hand on her shoulder and Kirlin jumped in surprise like Beryl had slapped her.

 

“You’re… fuck…” Kirlin whispered, and Beryl blinked in confusion as Kirlin stared back at her intensely.  Kirlin moved forward, pushing Beryl backwards. The two fell to the floor together in a chaotic tumble, and Kirlin immediately scrambled on top of Beryl, sitting on her chest and pinning her arms down.  A painfully hard bright red cock streaked with veins came out from under Kirlin’s dress, her panties completely unable to contain it. It was at least ten inches long and thicker than most of the toys that Mistress had been using on Beryl’s ass. Kirlin ignored her surprise and thrust her hips forward, her cock rubbing and grinding against Beryl’s face.

 

“It’s… tried to cure but…” Kirlin tried to explain but she was too overwhelmed to form proper sentences. Her breathing was hard and periodically interrupted by soft moans, and she was trembling continuously.  “Opennnn…!” she whined as she rubbed her cock against Beryl’s face.

 

_ “Obey Kirlin as you would me, unless her commands contradict mine.”   _ Mistress voice echoed in Beryl’s head, and in spite of the strangeness of the moment and Kirlin’s distress, she followed the older girl’s commands.  She opened her mouth for her cock and Kirlin jammed it in impatiently. The engorged flesh rubbed against Beryl’s teeth but Kirlin seemed not to notice or care.  Kirlin moaned immediately, her hips slowly driving her meat forward and her weight pressing another inch into Beryl’s mouth. Having a real cock in her mouth was a little strange.  Mistress had often mused about letting the house soldiers use her mouth for relief but she’d not yet done it. Kirlin’s cock was impossibly warm on her tongue and Kirlin shivered and moaned as she frenetically humped Beryl’s mouth.  Beryl gently licked and sucked on the tip, using her best guess as to what would feel good, but Kirlin’s reactions were so intense and sporadic that she couldn’t gague a proper reaction. Kirlin’s hands soon abandoned holding Beryl’s arms down and she instead moved them to Beryl’s skull, squeezing firmly but not painfully.  She moaned in something that sounded halfway between pain and ecstacy as she twitched and humped and shuddered. Beryl alternated between trying to suck Kirlin’s cock properly and holding on for dear life. She desperately tried not to choke as Kirlin spontaneously changed her tempo and force.

 

“Fuuuck… ugh this is— E-eeek!” Kirlin squeaked in surprise as her cock twitched, spasmed and started to leak cum.  Her cum didn’t spurt or spray with any real force it just kind of… flowed out, filling Beryl’s mouth. When it became obvious that Kirlin wasn’t going to pull out or stop cumming any time soon, Beryl started to swallow the thick, salty ejaculate.  The semen slid down her throat in several big gulps but it kept on coming. Mistress had made Beryl swallow her own cum often, so the concept wasn’t too strange, but Kirlin’s cum was much thicker and had a strange flavour to it. It had an intense sort of muskiness to it that was so…  _ masculine _ , in a weird way.  Kirlin continued to cum for several minutes, her posture and energy slowly ebbing.  She slowly collapsed on top of Beryl, panting and moaning deliriously.

 

“Such… a relief…” Kirlin whispered as the final droplets of cum leaked out of her cock.  The flow stopped only for an instant, before it started up again. Beryl let some trickle down her throat before she realized what was happening.  The salty, bitter liquid leaking into her mouth from Kirlin’s cock was not cum anymore. She struggled to pull away from Kirlin, she didn’t want Kirlin to pee in her mouth.  She struggled… not just against Kirlin’s hands, but against Mistress’ words. She’d been told not to disobey Kirlin, and those words held a sort of a grip on Beryl that she struggled against.  The words held her just as securely as ropes or chains.

 

“Oh!  Shit!” Kirlin cursed as she realized what was happening.  “Wait, why can’t it… it won’t stop... Oh, Fuck, the carpet…! Just, swallow it, okay?” Kirlin babbled and muttered before she gripped Beryl’s head tightly.  “Ana will kill me if I ruin it… C’mon, just…” Her hands were still on Beryl’s head and as she trailed off, something else hit Beryl. A shock of powerful Sorcery invaded her mind, overwhelming her thoughts, drowning out  _ everything _ .

 

_ Good girls swallow piss _

 

_ Good girls swallow piss _

 

_ Good girls swallow piss _

 

Beryl started to drink as Kirlin continued her agitated murmuring.  Kirlin’s command was everything. She drank, she did what she was told.   _ She was a good girl.   _ Beryl’s stomach rumbled a little as she swallowed down the copious volume of urine along with the cum that she’d already been fed.  The discomfort was nothing though. Why would she care about stuff like that?  _ She was a good girl.   _ When the flow finally wound itself down, Beryl continued to suckle and lick greedily, hungry for more, desperate to be the best girl she could be.

 

“Oh, shit, wow,” Kirlin sighed, finally letting Beryl go and leaning back.  Beryl didn’t give her a chance, she whined needily and crawled forward with Kirlin, continuing to suck, feeling some anxiety rising in her chest.  If there was no more piss to swallow, how could she be a good girl?

 

“H-Hey! It’s sensitive… cut it out,” Kirlin complained, pushing Beryl away and off her cock finally.  It came free of Beryl’s mouth with a soft pop and Kirlin scuttled backwards a little bit, watching Beryl suspiciously.

 

“B-But,” Beryl moaned softly, her eyes glued to the head of Kirlin’s cock.  “I want to be a good girl…”   
  
“What? No you’re… Oh… did I use too much power?” Kirlin bit her bottom lip anxiously and stared intently at Beryl.  Beryl frowned at that. Kirlin… Kirlin  _ wasn’t  _ Mistress.  Mistress didn’t say weird things like that.  Beryl groaned and put a hand to her temple, suddenly confused and a little worried.

 

“Where’s… Mistress…” she murmured.

 

“Right here.” Mistress’ voice answered.  She was right behind them.

 

“Mistress!”   
  
“A-Ana!”

 

Beryl cried out in excitement and Kirlin yelped in fright.  Beryl forgot all about Kirlin and crawled over to Analisse. She rested her head on Mistress’ leg and crooned happily.

 

“I’m a good girl, Mistress!” Beryl proclaimed enthusiastically.

 

“Uh-huh.  Kirlin,  _ what _ are you doing.  Why is your penis… gigantic.”  Analisse put a hand on Beryl’s head but otherwise ignored her.

 

“I… I tried to reverse the growth using Beryl’s blood, but instead it… did the opposite and went out of control.”

 

“You said you were going to wait to try that,” Mistress replied sternly, frowning at her cousin.

 

“I thought I had the answer!” Kirlin replied defiantly, rising up to her feet and dusting her dress off.

 

“Mistress, can I drink your piss? I want to be a good girl.” Beryl asked, pawing at Mistress’ leg a little to get her attention.  She was feeling a rising need blooming in her chest and it was starting to cause her some stress.

 

“Of cour—” Mistress paused mid-sentence, frowned, and looked down at Beryl.  “What did you just ask me, Precious?”

 

“I want to be a good girl, Mistress!” Beryl whined, suddenly afraid that Mistress would say no to her.

 

Analisse looked over at Kirlin and scowled.  “ _ What _ did you do to her?”

 

“I… Well… my dick is… I don’t know how to control it and I started to urinate and—”

 

“ _ My carpet??? _ ” Analisse raised her voice.  She wasn’t yelling, she never yelled, but Kirlin’s eyes went wide with fright all the same.

 

“No! I mean… no.  I, uhh… I couldn’t stop and I tried to make Beryl just drink it so it didn’t make a mess.  I just… she just needed a nudge.” Kirlin laughed nervously as Analisse’s scowl grew.

 

“A nudge, huh?  Stand up, precious.” Analisse snapped her fingers.

 

Beryl shot to her feet but fidgeted, her anxiety growing.  “Mistress! I need… good girl?” she whined incomprehensibly.

 

“Later, Precious.  Just hold still,” Analisse said with a sigh, placing her hands on Beryl’s head.  She felt something as her Mistress frowned in concentration. It wasn’t the normal feeling she got when Mistress put her hands on her head and made her feel all nice and safe.  It was... A sort of probing feeling. Like she was being dissected.

 

“You can just undo it, right?” Kirlin asked, taking a nervous half-step closer.

 

“No.  You pounded that suggestion into her with a sledgehammer, Kirlin.” Mistress replied with an exasperated sigh.  Beryl wasn’t entirely sure what the two of them were talking about, but she wasn’t drinking Mistress’ pee like she was supposed to and it was starting to worry her. “I’ll just scramble her brains if I try to dig it out.  We’ll have to wait for it to come out on it’s own but that could take months. Until then she’s probably going to be begging to drink random people’s piss,” Mistress sighed, and shook her head. “Well, I guess it could be worse. Precious?”

 

“Yes Mistress?”

 

“If you want to be a good girl, you have to ask the soldiers, okay? But they can only use your mouth, no other sex.” Mistress’ words sunk into Beryl’s mind the way they normally did, and she nodded, her anxiety ebbing away.

 

“And… you, Mistress?” Beryl asked.

 

“Hmm?  Oh, now?  I suppose that’s fine.” Mistress gave her a dismissive pat on the cheek and then lifted up her skirts.  Beryl squealed excitedly and fell down to her knees and crawled into position. “Alright Kirlin lets get your problem under control, people will definitely ask questions if they see that grotesque thing between your legs.”  Beryl removed Mistress’ panties hurriedly, and her Mistress casually stepped out of them as Beryl got them to the floor. She pressed her mouth to Mistress’ pussy eagerly and started to lick and suck, overjoyed to be pleasuring her and to be a good girl for her.

 

“D-Don’t call it grotesque! It’s just…” Kirlin whined.

 

“Grotesque is the  _ only _ word for it, Kirlin. Seriously, look at this thing,”  A loud slapping sound rang out through the room and Kirlin yelped and cried out.

 

“Y-You  _ slapped my _ —”

 

“Don’t you back away from me, get over here,” Mistress commanded sternly, and Kirlin’s protests were cut short.

 

“C’mon Ana you don’t ha—AAAHH!” Kirlin shrieked and cried out, and Mistress barked her name again sternly.  “It’s  _ so cold! _ ” Kirlin wailed.

 

“I need to get it totally soft before I can bind it,” Mistress explained impatiently.  “Stop being a baby, you did this to yourself.”

 

“Do you have to—Ngghhh” Kirlin’s complaint was cut off by a series of incomprehensible noises.  Beryl’s tongue flickered across Mistress’ pussy and she tasted a little bit of her urine. She formed a tight seal around her urethra and sucked gently as Mistress relaxed her bladder, letting a modest amount dribble into her mouth as she continued to assist Kirlin.

 

“Yes, I have to.  Look, it’s already working.”

 

“But it’s  _ so  _ cold,”

 

“It’s going to be cold  _ and _ sore, soon.  I’m going to have to bind it up tightly.” there was the tiniest bit of amusement in Mistress’ voice.

 

“You don’t… I mean… I wear dresses, a little bit of bul—guhh” Kirlin wheezed a little as Mistress wove some Sorcery to restrict her cock.

 

“No, someone might see it.  Stop squirming while I tighten this.”  Kirlin continued to gasp and groan as Analisse worked.  Beryl finished drinking the dribbles from Mistress’ urethra and started to gently lick and suckle on her clit.  “Ah… Precious, not not, I’m working,” Mistress chided her gently and nudged Beryl with her knee. She crawled out from between Mistress legs and looked over at Kirlin.  Her penis was glowing softly, covered with Glyphs and it was compressed tightly between her legs. Analisse was just finishing up, and gave Beryl a tiny pat on the head as she did so.

 

“S-Sorry, Ana,” Kirlin murmured sorrowfully.

 

“I don’t recall giving you permission to stick your cock in precious’ mouth in the first place,” Mistress replied dourly.  “You better have progress on the teleportation positioning if you’re spending time on your little side project.”

 

“It’s not little, that’s the problem,” Kirlin complained.  “But yeah I think I have the position we’ll need. I’m just drawing up the Glyph designs now.  I’ll have it ready by next week.”

 

“Finally, some good news.  Now I just need to figure out how to get Beryl into that party.”

 

“The party next week, Mistress?” Beryl asked.

 

“Uh-huh. I might have to ask Mother at dinner tonight but I’m not sure if I have anything to bribe her with.  Maybe I’ll have to promise the prince that he can fuck her or something,” Mistress mused to herself.

 

“Lady Yavimay invited me, Mistress.” Beryl spoke up, feeling a little bit of her head clear.  Both Kirlin and Mistress looked down at her suddenly, as though she hadn’t even been there prior to her saying that.

 

“Auntie wouldn’t have told you that, Beryl.  You must have misheard.” Kirlin laughed nervously.

 

“No…” Mistress whispered, a subtle joy infusing her tone.  “No, that’s exactly what that cunt would do. She thinks she can embarrass me in front of Schala.”

 

“Wait… really? I thought you got along with Auntie?” Kirlin asked.

 

“No, she can’t stand me.  Doesn’t matter if she manages to embarrass me.  We’re all-in on this one. We’ll either be excommunicated or we won’t need our reputations afterwards.”

 

“M-Mistress? What… what are we doing?” Beryl asked.

 

“Mmm, well, I suppose we can tell you.  Do you know what Sorce is, precious?” Mistress spoke slowly but carefully, her eyes intensely fixated on Beryl as she remained kneeling at her feet.

 

“Sore sea? I don’t…”  Beryl blinked, feeling more of the fog clearing from her mind.  The name, as Mistress had said it, it made her feel something. The crest on her chest tingled slightly, like it was stirring.  “She… who is She…?” Beryl asked.

 

“You  _ know _ who she is, precious.  Sorce is the Goddess that slumbers upon the Moon.  Sorcery is derived from our connection to Her. Ours, through The Source.  Yours, directly through the Crest. Even if you don’t know Her name I’m sure you’ve heard stories of Her, and you in particular have a special connection.  It’s been getting stronger, too. I can tell.”

 

“Since I started being more of a girl, I think… She’s… been waiting…?”  Beryl blinked slowly and touched the Crest on her chest gently. What had she just said?  The words had come out of her mouth but she wasn’t sure what had prompted them.

 

“Well, not for long.  We’re going to go pay her a visit.”

 

***

 

Beryl did a little twirl in her dress, giggling happily at the reflection in the mirror.  Mistress had bought it for her for the party and it was  _ really _ pretty.  Mistress had been in a good mood all week and was treating Beryl extra special.  She’d also been a  _ very _ good girl with all the guards and soldiers around the Trecorya estate.  She’d taken the past few days off of school, Mistress had said it wasn’t important anymore and she needed to practice and prepare for the party.  They’d gone over some Glyphs and Sorceries that they’d be doing, but Kirlin had done all the calculations and numbers, and Beryl understood what she needed to do easily enough.  It wouldn’t be as hard as… the… first time? She’d teleported before, she was certain, but she couldn’t fully remember it anymore. She knew it was sad and stressful and scary and Mistress didn’t want her being sad or stressed, so she didn’t think about those times anymore.

 

“There you are, Precious.  Ready?” Mistress’ voice came from their adjoining door, and Beryl turned around, grinning and bouncing on the balls of her feet.

 

“Just need to get my shoes on, Mistress,” she replied in a sing-song voice, swaying gently to some unheard song that was running in her mind.

 

“Excellent.  You look gorgeous tonight, precious.”  Mistress was often busy and distracted and didn’t have a lot of time for Beryl, but now Mistress was standing in the doorway, looking directly at her and smiling broadly.  Beryl blushed and covered her face with her hands, feeling her love swell uncontrollably.

 

“R-Ready in a second, Mistress!” she squeaked, running over to the closet to hastily slip on her shoes.  They were a soft green to match her dress with a taller heel than she was normally used to. But, she’d been practicing walking in them all day yesterday and was confident she wouldn’t trip.

 

She strode over to Mistress confidently, looking up at her with an adoring smile as she attached a short leash made out of chain to Beryl’s collar.  The chain and collar were crude and harsh-looking, contrasting the delicate feminine beauty of Beryl’s dress, makeup, and jewelry. The leash was made with Sorcery so that the length of it extended out or compressed inward a limited distance if Beryl moved, but would always be taut if Mistress pulled on it.  Mistress planted a gentle kiss on Beryl’s cheek, smiled at her, and they left for the party.

 

“Where is the Empress’ palace anyway, Mistress?” Beryl asked as the two of them walked along with a small entourage of soldiers and an attendant from the house.  They were walking along one of the many elevated pathways of Zeal, and spiralling gradually upwards but all the large buildings like the Trecorya estate were down lower to the ground.  There were a few long, spindly towers here and there but nothing grand and imposing.

 

“See that pathway over there?” Mistress asked, pointing patiently.

 

“Yes, it…”  she blinked in confusion.  It actually led to a strange little gazebo suspended up high in the air above the city, and then… nothing.

 

“That’s the entrance.”  Beryl blinked in confusion but she felt any and all urges to question something Mistress told her slip away and crumble into nothingness.  That was the entrance, so it was the entrance. A moment later, she heard someone approaching from behind them, and Mistress looked over her shoulder.

 

“Ana! Looks like I caught you.” Kirlin spoke with a tiny bit of breathlessness as she rapidly climbed the sloped pathway behind them to catch up.

 

“Nice to see you, cousin.  Would you like to make an entrance with me and my pet?” Mistress offered cordially.  Beryl knew that Mistress was just being formal and polite for appearances’ sake. She and Kirlin were actually very close friends.  She kind of wished she had a cousin, but her… no… family… Where…?

 

Beryl shook her head, the strange thoughts fading away so that they couldn’t bother her.  Their party approached the gazebo, and Beryl saw that it wasn’t empty. There were a few people standing guard just outside, but they didn’t look like normal soldiers.  They wore heavy full-length purple coats and white masks that were featureless say for two slits for the eyes. They weren’t carrying swords or spears but simple quarterstaffs painted purple.  One of them stepped forward, raising a white-gloved hand towards them as they approached.

 

“Lady Analisse Trecorya, and Lady Kirlin Dalton, you may approach, but your escorts must remain outside.” The androgynous voice echoed out loudly from inside the mask.

 

“My pet has an invitation as well,” Mistress stepped forward, tugging gently on Beryl’s leash.

 

The masked figure looked over at Beryl, and she felt intensely scrutinized by the faceless figure.  “You do not have the authority to invite a guest of your choosing to this event, Lady Analisse.”

 

“Lady Yavimay invited her personally.  Her name is Beryl, consult the guest list.” Mistress replied calmly.

 

The masked gatekeeper went perfectly still for a moment.  Beryl looked over at Mistress curiously but she also just calmly watched the gatekeeper.  Suddenly, they looked over at Beryl, as if seeing her for the first time. “Beryl.” They said her name stiffly, like it was foreign to them.  “You may enter under Lady Analisse Trecorya’s wardenship. Your actions are a direct reflection upon her. Do you understand?”   
  
“I do,” Beryl replied softly.

 

“As do I.  She shan’t leave my side, I assure you.” Mistress spoke up, taking a step forward.

 

“Very well.  Welcome to the Black Dream.” the gatekeeper said, standing aside and allowing the three of them to walk forward into the gazebo.  The floor of the gazebo was a shiny opaque blue glass that glowed with Sorcery.

 

“It’s impossible to enter the Palace without consent,” Kirlin explained, anxiety lacing her voice.  “Empress Schala controls The Source, and only The Source can allow you in—” Suddenly, Beryl felt herself being pulled.  She was yanked off her feet by some unseen and incredibly powerful Sorcery. The three of them flew through the air at an impossibly fast speed even as the air around them remained still.  They hit a… wall of some kind, an illusory barrier, and passed through it. The Palace suddenly appeared, suspended in the sky above the city of Zeal. The building was long and not overly tall, made out of a polished black metal that seemed to drink in the light radiating off the shining city below it. The whole building was shrouded in gloom and looked utterly inhospitable.  Bright lines of purple light gleamed across the surface of the obelisk-like structure, Glyphs and Sorcery serving some unknown purpose. It cast no shadow on the city below it. And it looked like…

 

“The Black Dream…?” Beryl whispered as they landed gently in a gazebo identical to the one they’d departed on, save for the fact that it was on a shelf jutting out of the Palace’s side.   Grand black doors open wide before them, unguarded and unwatched from this side.

 

“That’s the official name, yes.  We just call it the Palace.” Kirlin replied.  Beryl stared around in wonder, feeling the effects of the Sorcery that had carried them here.  Kirlin had just said that gaining entrance to the Palace was impossible without consent, but she gently touched the Moon’s Crest on her chest and she knew better.  Beryl bore the Crest, she was Sorce’s. She did not need Schala or The Source to enter here. She felt the Crest connect to the Sorcery, to Sorce’s gift keeping the Black Dream aloft.  As she stood here, she felt power and ideas filter into her mind. Were the Moon full, she could sever the Sorcery that kept this structure in place, she could topple the Empire and everything it represented, as Sorce’s child she was the heir to…

 

“Precious, come on, let’s go,” Mistress interrupted the intrusive alien thoughts overwhelming her by tugging on the leash harshly, the collar digging into her neck.  “Are you having second thoughts?”   
  


“No, Mistress,” Beryl answered, feeling Mistress enter into the forefront of her thoughts once again.  Part of her worried about the strangeness of what had just happened to her but thoughts of Mistress shoved those worries aside.  She instead smiled at Mistress and hurried along behind her as she went into the Palace. Mistress always made her feel better before, there was no reason to doubt her now.

 

“We’re going to slip away at one point.  Be quiet and follow quickly when we do. You're ready to use the invisibility Sorcery?” Mistress murmured her question to Beryl gently as they went through twisting black hallways and up steep flights of stairs.  The Palace didn’t look like much of a palace, there were no living quarters, and the only servants she saw were a very rare person dressed identically to the four people who’d granted them admission. Some carried staffs and looked like they were soldiers, but others dressed in the same uniform carried dishes and goblets away from the room they were heading towards.

 

Mistress led them along until the cramped narrow corridors gave way to a truly grand and dazzlingly lit ballroom.  There was a dance floor in the middle of the room where several couples moved to some soft violin music with no clear origination.  Tables ringed the floor in two tiers, with the upper tier only being home to a single, long table. At the head of that table was a woman sitting upon a chair made out of the same black metal as the Palace itself, glowing with the same Sorcery.  It wasn’t a throne, but it was definitely set apart from the rest of the room, and Beryl knew it had to be Empress Schala's. The Empress had long pale blue hair that cascaded down her back in a tall updo. She wore a simple purple dress that almost made her look plain compared to others at the party.  Beryl also spotted Yavimay and several others up there, Yavimay easily recognizable by her chair.

 

“We aren’t allowed up there, and good thing because it’s too conspicuous anyway.  Where’s the door we need to take, Kirlin?” Mistress spoke softly as she led the three of them into the room to claim an empty table for themselves.

 

“Left side of the room, the one closer to Schala’s table.” Kirlin answered, gesturing with her head.

 

“I see it.  We’ll slip out right before Schala’s speech.” Mistress replied even as several people approached their table.

 

Mistress and Kirlin chatted with the party that came up to see them, addressing them by name.  They completely ignored Beryl and peppered Mistress with questions about her family and the Academy and also about one of the colony islands, though not the one Beryl had come from.  More people came and went, and food was delivered to their table by several servants wearing the same masked uniform. The servants didn’t say a word to them, and move in a stiff almost mechanical fashion. Eventually, the music stopped, and the people dancing stopped with it, returning to their tables.

 

Mistress rose to her feet, prompting Kirlin and Beryl to follow her.  “That’s our timing. Schala’s speech is in five minutes. Let’s go.” The three of them moved calmly through the crowded room.  “Beryl, invisibility… now.” She whispered as they approached the staircase that would take them to the door Kirlin had indicated.  

 

Beryl wove the invisibility Sorcery, casting a bubble around the three of them.  It was a huge strain on her to make one so big with the Moon not quite in the right phase and she struggled to keep it up.  Mistress and Kirlin both moved quickly as she maintained it, passing by one of the masked guards and up the stairs into the doorway.  Beryl stumbled but Kirlin caught her and held her up as they passed through the large doorless exit, dragging her into the darkness of the hallway.

 

“It’s okay Precious, you can drop it.  Excellent work,” Mistress whispered to her, patting her on the head encouragingly.  Beryl groaned in pain as she did so, her vision swimming and blurring. She’d practiced that Sorcery a little but doing so in the moment with the Moon not exactly where it was in practice was a different beast.  Had it been even an hour later, with the Moon waxing even a tiny bit more, she’d never have made it.

 

Kirlin half-carried her behind Mistress, who dropped the leash and let it dangle on the ground as they moved through the darkened hallways.  Kirlin guided them through several intersections, and eventually made a hushed noise to stop them as soon they approached a particularly steep staircase.  “There will be Hands at the top of the stairs. We’ll have to take them out, and then we’ll have an hour at most before the rest of them notice.”

 

“Plenty of time.  Beryl, are you alright to help us deal with them?” Mistress looked over at her, and Beryl felt her determination and will.

 

“Yes, Mistress.  I can help,” Beryl nodded back at her.  Her chest still ached gently but she could work her Sorcery for some basic offensive purposes.

 

“Alright, they’ll know something is wrong on sight, so don’t waste time, hit them hard.” Kirlin whispered, looking up the stairs.

 

The three of them walked up the stairs, and rising up ahead of them was a huge black metal door that was blindingly alight with glowing Glyphs.  Two of the masked servants, the “Hands,” were there, staves at the ready. As Kirlin had said, they reacted immediately to their presence, but Mistress and Kirlin were already working their Sorcery in tandem.  Two points of light streaked down the hall and then detonated between the two Hands, the percussive impact echoing off the walls with a deep thumping noise. The force of the detonation sent the two Hands flying opposite directions into the walls.  One of them cracked their head on the wall and went limp, the other managed to stagger unsteadily back to their feet. Beryl placed her hands to the floor, and used her own Sorcery to conduct and direct electricity through the metal. The hand Spasmed as the current hit them, and then a moment later, collapsed in a twitching pile on the floor.

 

Mistress went over to them, placing her hands on their heads for a brief moment, glowing with Sorcery as she did.  “They’ll be out for hours, let’s get inside,” she looked up at Kirlin.

 

Beryl walked up next to Mistress and looked down at the two Hands.  It felt weird that she’d hurt these people. She never wanted to hurt anybody.  But, it would be okay, they’d sleep for a while and maybe have some pain when they awoke.  That wasn’t so bad, was it?

 

“Sorce’s Shadow, it won’t… Why isn’t this working?” Kirlin murmured as she used her Sorcery on the massive glowing door.

 

“You said you knew how to open it,” Mistress hissed in agitation.

 

“I do! It’s just not… It’s changed.  Do they change the lock?”   
  
“We are so  _ fucked _ if you don’t get that door open, Kirlin,” Mistress walked up next to her cousin and placed her own hand on the door.

 

“I know, I know!”

 

Something thrummed in Beryl’s chest, and she looked up at the door, no  _ past  _ the door.  Something… it was so close… it wanted her…  She walked up and placed her own hand on the door next to Kirlin's, and wove her Sorcery into it.  The Glyphs shone for a brief instant and then faded, the doors swinging open on their own accord.

 

“Precious… how did you…?” Mistress looked at her in wonder.

 

“I’m… Sorce’s…” Beryl murmured softly, the words pulled out of her.  “It’s… Mine…”

 

“Whatever, let’s go,” Kirlin looked worriedly behind her as she pushed open the massive metal doors into the chamber.

 

The chamber ahead was barren, empty walls, empty floor, empty ceiling.  In the center of the cylindrical room, was a slightly raised dais, upon which sat The Source.  It was a gray stone statue shaped vaguely like a person but to Beryl's eyes it pulsed and shined with Sorce's power.  The face of it was obscured by what looked like a helmet, while the shoulders bore massive rounded pauldrons wider than the body.  It had no legs, instead a single piece of the chestplate extended downward, hovering just off the floor. The helmet had no eyes, but several eyes dotted the chestplate and pauldrons of the statue.  Two tiny, claw-like hands perched just beneath the pauldrons, tensed as though they were grasping unseen objects. 

 

"...Precious!" Mistress shook her by the shoulder, grabbing her attention. "Are you okay? Can you lock the door behind us?"

 

Beryl stared at her blankly.  Could she? Who was Precious? She wasn't… She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head trying to clear the fog.  "...yes, Mistress." She finally answered. The Source was hers. Sorcery was hers. She could lock that door. She was Mistress' precious and she could do what she wanted easily

 

"She's got a lot of suggestions on her Ana. Maybe being so close to The Source is muddling them?" Kirlin asked as she started to unpack the chalks she needed to draw Glyphs.

 

"And whose fault is that?" Mistress snapped back.  Beryl turned to the doors and worked her Sorcery into the Glyphs of it, sliding them closed with a soft rumble.  She sealed it shut, and somehow knew that none other than her could open it. The Unfavored would have to melt their way through the metal as though it were a seamless wall to reach her.

 

"I’m not blaming! Just speculating,” Kirlin snapped back as she began to draw the Glyph around the Source that would take them to Her.

 

“Precious, just… let me know if you feel strange at all, okay?” Mistress asked her, putting her hand on Beryl’s shoulder for a moment.

 

Beryl looked at Mistress, and felt the love she normally felt for her.  “I will, Mistress. This place is just… strong.” Mistress frowned a little at that, but accepted her explanation and went over to help Kirlin draw.

 

The two didn’t ask for Beryl’s help, and when she went over to offer it to them, Mistress told her not to worry and to save her strength.  She was a tad put off at that, since as she watched them draw. She knew exactly what they were doing and what they needed to do, even as the two of them constantly consulted their notes and formulas as they worked.  The Glyph slowly but steadily took shape, Mistress getting slightly more agitated and snapping at Kirlin more often as they worked. They were almost done when a banging came at the door, and Beryl turned around impassively to watch the Unfavored try to gain access to her birthright.

 

“Precious? Is that going to hold?” Mistress asked worriedly.

 

“They’ll have to melt the door to slag, Mistress,” Beryl replied calmly as she felt the Unfavored try in vain to unwind her binding Sorcery.  It was like watching a kitten try to unravel a knot in a heavy rope.

 

“Keep drawing, go!” Mistress hissed to Kirlin, the stress obvious in her voice.

 

“Alright, I think… I think we got it,” Kirlin spoke up a few minutes later.  The banging had come several more times, but not in the past minute. Now, Beryl could tell that they were trying to melt the thick metal doors, but that would take them hours.  “Let’s do a quick double check.”

 

Beryl turned around and looked at the Glyph.  “There, Miss Kirlin. That expression needs to be inverted, it’s wrong.” she pointed at the wrong bit.

 

Kirlin looked over at her, bewildered, then over at the expression she was pointing at, then at her notes.  “Uhh… Yeah, you’re right,” she murmured, scampering over to correct her mistake. Beryl cast her gaze over the rest of it, and then nodded.

 

“It’s correct,” she said.

 

“I’ll take her word for it,” Mistress took Beryl’s hand, and smiled victoriously at her.  Beryl smiled back at her. She loved her Mistress so much, Mistress took care of her, saved her and protected her.  She was a good girl for Mistress.

 

Mistress guided Beryl by the hand into the middle of the ring of Glyphs, right up next to The Source.  “Take us there now, Precious. You know where we’re going.”

 

Beryl looked over at Kirlin, who was standing outside.  “Miss Kirlin is staying here?”

 

“I have to adjust the Glyph after you go so that you can make it back.  Just go, I’ll be waiting,” Kirlin smiled too, though her smile had none of the everlasting love in it that Mistress’ did.

 

Beryl nodded at Mistress and placed her hands on The Source. She felt a terrible thrumming as something within it vibrated against something within her.  She channeled power, her Sorcery into the Glyph that Mistress had drawn, and the Crest within her squirmed and pulsed angrily, making her sick to her stomach.  Reality around her and Mistress seemed to stop, and for an eternal moment, Beryl was aware of everything around her, every tiny scratch in The Source, every scuff on the stone dais that The Source sat upon, every tiny dent in the black metal walls around her.  This time, as the teleportation took shape, she felt a pull, a slide towards something both within her and something terribly far away. The two became one, and there was an immensely pleased hissing rasp that passed through and over her senses.

 

Beryl gasped in shock, breathing in a lungful of strange air.  It wasn’t just different it was..  _ alien. _ She fell to the ground, but falling felt wrong, too slow, too soft.  Her vision swam for a moment and when it cleared, she saw that she was kneeling down on the ground, soft gray dust swirling around in invisible air currents around her elbows.  She looked up, and saw that The Source was there just ahead of her, and she’d taken them into a wide crater with the teleportation Sorcery. A gradual rocky gray slope rose all around her, and when she looked up to see the sky, it wasn’t there.  Space, the stars, and, prominently, the blue planet she’d just come from dominated her vision. It was all visible through a strange sheen like a gigantic soap bubble shimmering on the edge of visibility. Rainbows of discolouration danced along the edges and at strange angles, giving it a surreal, dream-like quality.

 

A low rumble passed through the space. It was that same hissing rasp she’d first felt when she’d enacted the Glyph to bring them here.  She didn’t just hear it, she  _ felt  _ it, it made the Crest on her chest ache and throb.  A shiver of dread passed through her, and she squeezed her eyes shut.  Mistress normally made these feelings go away, but Beryl didn’t know where she’d gone, and this terror didn’t feel normal, it felt like an otherworldly presence was crushing her from every direction.

 

Something pulled upon her, and she opened her eyes against her will and looked up.  A dark, swirling mist was coalescing, taking an amorphous shape with a disturbing sentience.  The mist slowly creeped towards her, tendrils of it wrapping around her with a playful sense of exploration.  Almost instantly, a humanoid torso formed out of the mist, leaning in towards Beryl. It was featureless, but Beryl recognized it as a mirror image of herself.  A hand reached out towards her, cupping Beryl’s cheek. Beryl felt a joyous sensation pass through her that wasn’t her own. It was alien, invasive, and had a sort of terrible wrongness to it.

 

**_“...Child…”_ ** a voice echoed all around and through her.

 

“Sorce!” Mistress’ voice cut through the haze that was swallowing Beryl, and the humanoid shape vanished instantly.  The mist around Beryl remained, like it was holding her in place, as more of it swirled around Mistress. An angry, writhing ring of mist formed around her.  Shapes appeared in the darkness, the ghosts of wicked-looking claws and long, scythe-like limbs. But even as they writhed about, none of them ventured forward to strike.  Beryl realized that Mistress was standing next to The Source, one hand on it like it was a lifeline for her. She was standing up to the amorphous form of Sorce, staring at the darkness in challenge.

 

**_“This does NOT belong!”_ ** Sorce formed another humanoid avatar, this one fully-bodied, and it stepped out of the ring aggressively in front of Mistress.  The Goddess pointed at The Source, and one of the scythe-limbs emerged from the mist, slamming down into the ground next to Mistress and ripping the rock apart with a rumble and a spray of dust.

 

“I will return it to Zeal,” Mistress said with a tiny smirk, ignoring the limb that was still vibrating and grinding against the rock right next to her.  “But I have demands that must be met first.”

 

There was a tiny moment of agitation within the ring of fog, and the humanoid form went totally still.  After several seconds of silence, Sorce’s humanoid projection took upon more details, shape, and colour.  A few seconds passed and then the avatar was an exact replica of Beryl’s Mistress that the darkness yet lingered around.  “We will hear,” Sorce hissed angrily. Her voice - Mistress’ voice - echoed around the crater with impossible acoustics.

  
  


Mistress held out her hand, presenting her Brooch to her doppleganger.  The one Beryl had seen her working with over the past few weeks. “Imbue this object with your essence.”

 

Small tendrils of mist emerged from Sorce’s avatar and touched the brooch, investigating the object curiously.  Suddenly, the tendrils snapped away, and Sorce laughed. The sound was a singular, loud sort of crack that came from all directions.  The sound somehow conveyed both mockery and a sense of amusement though Beryl wasn’t quite sure how. “A second Source, bound to your blood?” Sorce smirked in a perfect facsimile of Mistress’ own expression, taking a slow, deliberate step towards her. 

 

“That is my condition,” Mistress asserted, standing her ground and staring the Goddess down.  Sorce stepped in front of Mistress and took her hand in hers. The avatar looked down at the brooch with a sort of bemused preoccupation, but Beryl had a distinct feeling that it was just theatre; Sorce’s attention was everywhere at once.

 

“You know not what you ask, but we do accept.  Our child has returned to us; we are joyous and in good humour this hour,” a soft chuckle filled the crater, as Sorce’s avatar slowly looked up into Mistress’ eyes with a gleefully sadistic expression.

 

“Beryl is mine,” Mistress snapped, withdrawing her hand and scowling.  “She returns with me.”

 

Another scythe-limb emerged from the darkness opposite to the second, slamming into the ground.  This time, Mistress jumped a little as Sorce’s avatar vanished into smoke and the ring of Sorce’s presence drew closer, trapping Mistress in a smaller space.

 

**_“No!  Ours!”_ ** a million enraged voices hissed at once, anger vibrating all around the crater.  The two scythe-limbs that were formed and separated from the mass twitched in agitation, as though Sorce was just barely holding them back.

 

Mistress shuffled a little bit, her own nervousness showing.  She looked at the angry mass of Sorce around her, swirling, closing in, threatening.  She looked over at Beryl, and a resigned, sad expression crossed her face.

 

“Sorry, Precious,” she murmured.

 

Beryl felt her world stop.  Her eyes widened, and she cried out, reaching out towards Analisse and taking a leap forward to try and run through Sorce’s vaporous form to reach her.  Tangible tendrils of mist materialized and tightened around her, catching her and dragging her away from Analisse.

No.  This wasn’t happening.

 

Analisse held out the brooch, looking away from Beryl.  “I accept,” she yelled into the sentient darkness. The swirling mist calmed, and a third scythe-limb descended.  This one did not strike the ground, it impaled Analisse’s brooch and her hand, though there was no spray of blood as there had been stone and dust.  Sorce’s wicked cackle filled the space as Analisse screamed. She fell to her knees in pain as the insect-like limb kept her skewered. The air shimmered and an inky blackness wound its way through Analisse’s veins, travelling down her arm, up her neck, and spiderwebbing across her face.  Her blonde hair began to darken, becoming an unnatural pitch-black tone that was like looking into the abyss. The limb impaling her vanished instantaneously, and with a howl of pain, Analisse fell forward onto all fours, clutching the brooch and weeping softly.

 

**_“Now… Return.”_ ** Sorce’s voices commanded, the ring of mist tightening around Analisse until she had less than a full arm span around The Source.  Analisse shakily rose to her feet, clutching her hand and the brooch and breathing heavily. She cast a scornful look at the darkness around her as though she’d just been betrayed, rather than betraying Beryl, herself.  

 

**_“...Now…!”_ **

 

Analisse rose up to her full height and growled softly.  She didn’t say anything, she just shook her head and placed her hand on the Glyphs that they’d drawn onto The Source together.  A moment later, they were gone, and Beryl was alone with Sorce.

 

**_“Despair not…”_ ** Sorce’s voices crooned soothingly as the mist tightened around her.  She realized she was crying, but she felt dead, she felt empty and betrayed.   **_“She Bound it to her blood.  Unusable to others, but Bound, to return to us.”_ ** The voices giggled, laughing at their own incomprensible joke.

 

Beryl wasn’t sure what she meant.  She had no idea what was happening.  She was too broken even to fight. A tendril of blackness more solid than the rest emerged from Sorce’s form.  It slowly crept towards Beryl, wriggling its way into her leg, passing through it insubstantially. Her limb dissolved, breaking apart to be absorbed into the shadows around her.  Her eyes went wide in horror as she watched. It seemed like it should hurt, but she couldn’t feel anything at all. Another tendril approached, passing through and dissolving her other leg.  One went through her chest, emerging from her back.

 

Beryl broke apart, absorbed into the hungering darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading <3


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